BACK OFFICE
ADVERTORIAL
A journey to
sustainability
With an established footprint in the FMCG food market, EST Africa has opened
its DIY voluntary buying group. The focus is now on sharing knowledge and
margins with its members and growing the DIY footprint nationally.
In January 2012, EST Africa
launched its voluntary buying
group within the South African DIY
and hardware industry. The launch
of this DIY group comes on the success
created by EST’s food buying group
established six years earlier. At this
moment, EST boasts 252 retail outlets
belonging to the group nationally.
“When one considers the successful
DIY and hardware groups within the
South African landscape, the majority
are built on the foundation laid by a
successful FMCG background,” says
Louis Greeff, Managing Director from
EST. Some of the groups he refers to
include Builders Warehouse, Cashbuild
and Build it.
Members of the EST group continue
to trade under their respective trading
names, with no pressure to change
to a corporate structure. “The current
stores are all exceptionally successful,
but they see trouble on the horizon with
the numerous changes in the industry
and want the competitive advantage of
Need to know more?
No franchise fees
Any profits incurred by EST returned to
members/shareholders as dividends
Limited effective corporate structure
252 stores
Established 2012 (Elite Star Trading 1997)
12
HARDWARE AFRICA 2014
‘a big daddy’ to level the playing field,”
explains Greeff.
The group’s success in the FMCG
industry was a logical choice for many
of the independents joining the group.
“Our aim is to represent our members
on a different level. We will offer the
width and depth of distribution to
suppliers, whilst the members can
continue to do what they do best –
trade,” he says. Greeff continued to
explain that head office will be a place
for suppliers to go and talk about their
strategy, and not a place where the
core focus will be on price only.
Where members already have wellestablished relationships with suppliers,
head office will not interfere, however,
where it can build a new relationship
on a member’s behalf is where EST
believes it could add value to its
members. ‘We will help to level the
playing field,” says Greeff.
“When we consider the current DIY
landscape, we feel it is roughly 12 years
behind the FMCG industry, however,
our members can apply our knowledge
of the FMCG industry and catch up
within five years,” explains Greeff. The
management team at EST will help
stores with merchandising as well as
design aspects of stores and will help
to negotiate credit card fees, which will
benefit smaller stores.
For more info...
Rob Suttle or Mohamed Varachia
Tel: 011-383-1900