By James Wells

BRISBANE: Narta member Bi-Rite Electrical has outlined the methodology it will use to continue its progress as the fastest growing electrical retailer in Australia to achive its previously stated goals of 150 stores by 2009 and $1 billion in total group sales by 2013.

According to Bi-Rite Electrical franchisor, Abdul Sacur, the business has grown total purchases by 55 per cent in the 12 months to August 2006, prior to the addition of eight new members from the Betta Stores Group.

"At the moment, we have retailers approaching our group, due to the uncertainty of other retail groups in the market and the turnover criteria for Narta. We are offering an alternative," Sacur said.

"This has provided us with an opportunity to selectively add new retail franchisees to our group.

"We see there is good opportunity for some medium sized retailers to be profitable in the future providing they have low overheads.

"All retail models are focused on big box, higher-overhead operations. Therefore we plan to offer a tighter, more condensed range with an always stock in hand model.

"We can now afford to be selective for our future franchisees."

Sacur says Bi-Rite claims it is 100 per cent accountable for the debt incurred by its members and pays suppliers through a central accounting mechanism.

"We will be prudent in our selection of franchisees as we pay suppliers within 30 days," he said.

"Our focus is on core Narta suppliers and core range of models. We aim to improve our percentage of purchases to core Narta suppliers from 80 per cent to 90 per cent. Ordering through the Bi-Rite head office, in turn provides collated orders back to Narta.

"We are ready to trade electronically, we are ready to invest in a new system to get all stores on line and we have transparency of all franchisee’s stock as we provide weekly stock on hand data to Narta."

According to Sacur, he will work at updating the design and layout of all stores within his group.

"We will work to upscale our image," he said.

Sacur also said that the group will implement staff training which will be based on program developed by suppliers to the group and courses developed by the Narta head office.