By Aimee Chanthadavong
While cautious times are still ahead for many retailers, Beaumont Tiles pushes on in expanding its presence in NSW with hopes to reap the benefits of the reported housing boom.
As part of a $24 million investment, Beaumont plans to open at least a dozen company-owned or franchised stores over the next 12 months.
Speaking to RetailBiz, Beaumont Tiles chief operating officer Danny Casey said the family-owned company sees NSW, in particular the Sydney CBD, as a critical part to its national growth strategy.
“With NSW it’s the biggest state with most population, the recent ABS housing data for 2013 has showed building increases over 10 per cent provides us great opportunity to captailise on that,” he said.
While existing NSW stores are based mainly in western Sydney, the plan is open the new outlets within a 10 kilometre radius of the Sydney CBD to ramp up its presence in the metro area, including in the lower north shore, eastern suburbs and the inner west.
“There are great opportunities there and we have enlisted PCG to help us find new sites. As we speak, we’re signing off on two leases within in those areas,” Casey said.
“Primarily we want hope to have existing high profile tile outlets join the brand. We also have half a dozen of new franchisees looking for the right location.”
Last year Beaumont became the biggest tile retailer in Queensland through the acquisition of the Majer Tiles group’s six outlets, which boosted its network in that state to 25.
“We have strategic locations in each state that we have identified. Obviously we want to support the franchising network and ensure we have the appropriate resources to do that,” Casey said.
“NSW does offer us great potential but we’re also in negotiation for more leases in Queensland and Victoria. So while we do have a national strategy NSW is the focus for us for now.”