If Christmas had an opposite, such an unholy season would, for companies listed on the Australian stock exchange, fall in the month of August. Far from being a festive period, this is the time when listed companies crunch the numbers from the financial year, open up their books, reveal how much money they made (or lost), and answer questions from investors, analysts and media about why. (For shareholders receiving a juicy dividend, it is like Christmas.)

While there’s plenty of room to fixate on finer details, earnings reporting season offers a chance to unpack company strategy from the chief executives that lead the businesses: what’s doing well, what worries them, and what their next big bets are.

From furniture and wine to milk powder and pies, here’s what the chief executives of Temple & Webster, Treasury Wine Estates, Universal Store, A2 Milk, Retail Food Group, and Ingham’s revealed about where growth in the business will – and won’t – come from.

Temple and Webster’s Modern Mosaic Escape bathroom idea.

One of many retailers rewiring the way we shop, and proving how happy we are to do it online, is Temple & Webster. According to Mark Coulter, chief executive of the ecommerce furniture business, Australians are quite happy to shop for DIY home improvement materials – things such as bathroom vanities, taps, heating and fan lighting – without touching or seeing it first.

“With the right images, video, ratings and reviews, you can get a really good sense of what that bathroom vanity is going to look like,” he said. “You’re not going to be sitting in it. You’re not going to be sleeping on it. So the actual touch and feel is less about comfort – it’s more about trust.”

Experiencing the product becomes more important for products that will be used every day, such as mattresses and sofas, where comfort matters much more, he said.

Meanwhile, bedroom furniture and homewares are still selling strongly. “We’re selling more sofas and dining tables than we’ve ever sold before.”

There are only a handful of names that can be considered luxury Australian brands. RM Williams is one, Aesop paved the way for high-end handwash, and Penfolds is another. The luxury wine makes up more than a third of parent company Treasury Wine Estates’ total revenue of nearly $3 billion.

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© The Sydney Morning Herald