Purchasing plus

In recent times the Bricoalliance purchasing organisation has been in the news. First came a change of management in the spring: since April Jeroen Lauwers has been running this cooperative venture. Then the association announced an increase in membership. Lauwer’s predecessor and founding secretary general, Jan Van de Mierop, had already made preparations for the Estonian DIY retailer Bauhof to become a member in June. This was followed by Metrika, the Russian DIY chain, in September. This means that the organisation now has seven members. They are Bricoking in Spain, Hubo in Belgium, Puntolegno in Italy, Nomi in Poland and Multimate in the Netherlands, besides the two new entrants. Together they have 356 outlets with a combined sales area of 1.47 mio m² and sales adding up to some € 1.387 bn. The purchasing volume dealt with through Bricoalliance is still in the single-digit millions. “However, we are now going to build that up further,” announced Jeroen Lauwers, “and would like our purchasing to account for four to five per cent of turnover. That is our target in three years.” For the most part Bricoalliance procures bulk articles for members’ promotions. The main ranges involved here are lighting, heating and seasonal goods, as well as laminate and OSB. The intention is to pay more attention to private-label articles in a second phase. The majority of goods are sourced from East Asia. Apart from the head office in Wommelgem, Belgium, the group has a purchasing office with eight employees in Shanghai, China. All the activities of the central organisation are financed through a fee that is adjusted to the amount of purchasing actually effected. Any surplus funds are paid out to the members. However, joint purchasing is not the only purpose for which the DIY retailers have come together. Indeed, they exchange information on questions of marketing, for instance, on product mixes, suppliers and POS design. They are also the recipients of certain services through their cooperative venture, such as advice and supplier analysis. There is an annual meeting of the board of directors to coordinate this, while the purchasing directors of the companies concerned meet four times a year for an extremely frank exchange of information. As Lauwers asserts, “Nobody has any secrets.” These meetings are going to be bigger in the future: although only one company from each country can become a member of Bricoalliance, further growth is expected. Download: