By Patrick Avenell
SYDNEY, NSW: Bing Lee is continuing its modest expansion strategy, and will again open three new stores this year. The first was the new Sony Centre in Drummoyne, next is a new Prospect store, and third store is planned, though the location can’t be confirmed at this stage.
Speaking to Current.com.au, Bing Lee general manager Phil Moujaes said the new Sony Centre was performing well.
“So far so good,” said Moujaes. “We have a budget for that store and the sales so far have been on budget.”
When asked for information on future store openings, Moujaes said Bing Lee’s macro strategy has not been affected by the global economic turmoil.
“Our strategy hasn’t changed over the last five or six years: we’ve been opening up about three new stores a year, so we will still do that this year.
“We opened a shop at the Sony Centre Store in Drummoyne in June and we have plans to open another two stores before the end of this year: Bing Lee stores.”
Due to economies of scale advantages to New South Wales and ACT trading, Moujaes said Bing Lee has no plans to expand beyond these borders. As for the stores currently open and operating, Moujaes reported strong sales in a number of key categories.
“IT has been a very strong category, and I think if you look at the figures that were released by the public companies, such as Harvey Norman, you can see that overall, IT sales have been strong for them too.
“Whitegoods sales have been quite strong in the last 6 months and CE sales have been good too. TVs are going well.”
On that last category, Moujaes noted that the next six months was critical to the TV segment, as retailers and suppliers observe the market in a non-Olympics year.
“TV sales peak every four years when the Olympics are on, so we have a pretty big challenge in the industry to match last year’s sales, so that’s going to be interesting to see how we got with that,” he said.