MERCHANT FOCUS: BUILDERS MERCHANT COMPANY LTD
H
aving opened its second branch in Hull just four years ago, independent family run builders merchant Builders Merchant Company Ltd has outgrown it already. “It’s been the most incredible journey in Hull,” says BMCO managing director Duncan Thomson. “We were originally taking a 10-year lease but with an ability to break it if necessary, after five. The reception and welcome we received from the local market have been amazing and we just outgrew the premises, so that it was a natural progression to go for a larger site.”
Offering the company 30,000sq ft of warehousing on a 1.68acre site, the new Hull branch has room for a showroom and upgraded offices and, taking over from incumbent manager, Steve Quigley, is a new manager, Chris Ward. Quigley joined BMCO to set up the Hull branch and then became area manager looking after Hull and Rotherham when that branch opened. The Hull branch manager leaving then coincided with the first lockdown in March 2020 so Thomson says it was a sensible move for Quigley to step back in to manage that branch. “He has done something tremendous with it, doubling turnover, getting the right staff in and creating a real character for the branch. So much so that we had to move premises.
18
SMALL MERCHANT: BIG IDEAS
Builders Merchant Company Ltd has just opened a new, bigger depot in Hull, despite the pandemic. Fiona Russell Horne finds out how and why.
“When you want to grow as a business, you have a choice of three ways you can go. One is to sell the same things, but more of them to the same people. The second route is to sell the same things to different people, or thirdly to sell different things to everybody. So, the advantage of the new Hull depot with its size and economies of scale will allow us to do that third option and expand our market.”
One of the ways that the predominantly heavyside company aim to expand is via the plumbing and heating sector, which the increased size of the new depot gives it scope to do. As does its membership – just over two years – of buying group NBG. Thomson is
adamant that the expansion of Hull, and the company’s general growth, would have been far harder without the support of the buying group.
“When we first joined, it turned our company upside down, in a good way. I thought I was a good buyer, but, my word, the guys we have doing the buying at NBG really know their stuff. Our membership will allow us to expand and grow our company, not just in terms of branches but also what we can offer our customers. That’s the beauty of being in the buying group, the deals are already there for you to take advantage of.”
Sticking to the buying group deals and
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net May 2021
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