By James Wells

NOWRA: After 18 years, the former chairman of Betta Stores Limited, Patrick Tynan, has decided to close his 900 square metre Betta Electrical store in Nowra after the stores lease renewal allowed for a reassessment of operations.

Tynan said the decision to close the store came about when the lease for the 900 square store came up for renewal.

The store is the second largest electrical retailer in the area behind The Good Guys and is larger than the Harvey Norman electrical offering.

“We had an option as we came to the end of the lease to reassess what we are doing, so we made the decision to close down."

Another impact on trade has been the development of a bulky goods area 10 minutes south of Nowra.

“All furniture and electrical stores have moved out there, and we had to relocate if we were going to stay in business as well. All of these werecontributing factors – there is no one factor," he said.

Tynan said he will continue to work with BSR as franchise consultant which he has been doing for the last six to 12 months.

“I am still doing some consulting to Betta Stores Retail and this will allow me to work on that a bit more, to grow the BSR network and help those franchisees as they come on board.

“I have been in the industry all my life. I started out at National Panasonic in 1979 in the whitegoods area as a product manager and then to marketing manager for whitegoods and then Technics Hi-Fi. I then became national sales manager for Panasonic, reporting to Director of Sales and I left there to be the inaugural general manager at Samsung Electronics Australia in 1987.

“We started in Australia Square – just myself and two Koreans – starting the company from scratch.

"From there I entered retail and our first shop was in Nowra. I then joined buying committees and became chairman of the group. Always with Betta.

“We’ve been in a closing down sale since 1 May, which has gone extremely well – they are the best two sales you ever have – the opening and the closing sale for any business.

“We are leaving with very good friends in the industry and will continue to live in the local area.”