BrandsMart U.S.A., the Florida-based brown- and white-goods discount emporium, is set to open the doors to its second Atlanta-area store on Sept. 30.
The new 100,000-square-foot showroom, located just off I-75 in this Atlanta bedroom community, will become BrandsMart’s seventh store. Its debut comes less than one year after the NATM dealer made its first foray outside Florida with a 130,000-square-foot megastore in Doraville, Ga., just outside Buckhead.
Both Georgia stores will be supported by a new 250,000-square-foot warehouse/distribution center, expandable to 1 million square feet, located in nearby Ellenwood.
Like its elder sister store, the Kennesaw site features such local BrandsMart updates as an expanded TV display area, bundled A/V systems, brighter lights and a conveyor belt that delivers inventory from the back room directly to the center of the selling floor. The company is retrofitting and re-merchandising its Florida locations with several of the Atlanta stores’ enhancements.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for 9:30 on opening morning, with doors opening at 10 a.m. Grand opening festivities will include thousands of dollars in product giveaways, including a Kia Rio automobile.
The company, led by CEO Robert Perlman and his son Michael, who serves as president, projects that total 2005 calendar year sales (excluding the newest store) will top $850 million, and that comparable-store sales will hit double digits. BrandsMart says its per-store volume exceeds that of other warehouse and discount chains, making it one of the largest sales-per-store retailers in the United States.
Indeed, Michael Perlman told TWICE earlier this year that his company now accounts for 2.5 percent of all big screen TV sales in the country.
BrandsMart plans to effectively encircle the city by opening a third Atlanta-area store. That will add further heat to a once-underserved market that now boasts a Fry’s showroom and 11 H.H. Gregg locations — including one here in Kennesaw.
