Mr Bricolage Blog

Mr Bricolage received an award at the 24th “Meilleurs Franchisés et partenaires de France” competition. This competition is organised by the Fédération des Réseaux Européens de Partenariat et de Réseaux de Franchise (Federation of European Partnership networks and Franchise networks). This institute is better known by its acronym, IREF, and unites independent structured trading networks.

The franchisee of the Mr.Bricolage store in Hazebrouck, Dominique Duquesnoy, received the Grand Award for Commercial Attack. The awards were sponsored by Pierre Lellouche, Secretary of State in charge of foreign trade, and Frédéric Lefèvre, Secretary of State in charge of Commerce and Crafts, SME’s, Tourism, Services, Independent Professions and Consumption.

The IREF also celebrated its 30th anniversary on this occasion. Since its creation, over 600 franchisees and partners have received awards from this institute. The competition received 30% more applications than usual for this 24^th edition.

The awards are based on criteria focusing on economic performance, participation in the network, advertising, communication campaigns and involvement in the local community (Chamber of Commerce, associations, etc.).

Dominique Duquenoy (franchisee for the store in Hazebrouck and Thierry Portelette (in charge of development for the Northern region)

The Mr Bricolage group will attend Franchise Expo 2011.

This annual event will be held at Porte de Versailles, Paris, 20 – 23 March. Franchise Expo enables those planning to start their own businesses to discover the opportunities offered by the almost 450 companies present.

The Mr Bricolage group stand handles several hundred contacts each year. Some of these contacts lead to real results and the candidates create their own businesses. Each year, Mr Bricolage and Briconautes propose documentation on how to create new stores or take over rival stores and on sales outlets for sale within the group.

For more details, check out the new businesses page on the Mr Bricolage.com web site.

For more details on the Franchise Expo fair.

Mr Bricolage opens a new store in the Castellane district at Marseille. This store is located 10-12 avenue de Toulon in the 6th district, and covers 372 m² of sales area.

The store is part of Mr Bricolage’s strategy to re-conquer town centres. The store also reinforces the group’s presence in the local segment, in both urban and rural zones.

Early in the year, the Catena  store in Ruoms (Ardèche) switched its name to Mr Bricolage. This sales outlet includes almost 900 m² of indoor sales space and 600 m² of outdoor space. The store is currently being extended. These works should be completed in March 2011.

On 3 January, at Pont-de-Vaux in Ain, the store operated under the Les Briconautes name was acquired and the name changed to Mr Bricolage. This store includes a total sales area of 1,960 m² with 1,700 m² indoors and 260 m² outdoors.

Mr Bricolage is continuing its policy to promote local shops in town centres. The group recently opened two stores in Paris, previously operated under the Catena store name.

Enhanced presence of Mr Bricolage in Paris and inner Paris. The group can now boast 6 local stores in Paris and 5 in towns just outside of the French capital.

The group’s policy to re-conquer town centres also applies in the rest of France. After Strasbourg and Cachan in recent months, a second Mr Bricolage store will open shortly in the Castellane district of Marseille.

The store is continuing to reinforce its network of local stores. The current transfer of many small stores operating under the Catena name to the Mr Bricolage name will contribute to this policy in favour of local services. This policy is a real boost for customers living in town centres. They are no longer obliged to cover long distances to reach the trading estates to purchase simple everyday items.

Mr Bricolage has extended 9 of its stores, some with a change of address and some on-site. These extensions represent almost 8,000 m² in extra sales area for the group.

The 9 stores extended are located in Saint-Clément (near to Sens – 89), Hendaye (64), Port (01), Villefranche de Rouergue (12), Objat (19), Borgo (20), Algajola (20), Montmorillon (86) and Parthenay (79).

The group continues to gain market share by moving and extending its stores. This meets the expectations of customers looking for local stores able to provide most of the elements they require in a human- scale environment.