Bing Lee is an Australian retailing company, a chain of superstores specialising in consumer electronics, computer and telecommunication goods. Bing Lee is the largest privately held electrical retail business in New South Wales with 35 Bing Lee branded stores alongside its new premium retail Signature Appliance showroom, as well as the subsidiary Miele Specialist store and the La Cornue showroom in Surry Hills.
The business remains a family-run enterprise into a fourth generation since it was originally founded by Chinese immigrant Bing Lee and his son Ken.
Yenda Lee is the unofficial chairwoman of Bing Lee and one of its two board members, along with her son Lionel, its chief executive.[2][3]
History
The business began when Bing Lee (Chinese: 李冰; pinyin: Lǐ Bīng)[4] purchased an electrical repair business in Fairfield, New South Wales, in 1957. Lee, along with his son Ken Lee & Cedric Lee (Chinese: 李光裕; pinyin: Lǐ Guāngyù), transformed the repair business into an electrical product retail and repair/installation business named Bing Lee Electronics (Chinese: 并力电器; pinyin: Bìng Lì Diànqì; lit. 'Combined Power Electrical Appliances').[5][6][note 1] Initial growth came from the surge in demand for televisions, as well as a host of other household items like washing machines, cooking equipment, heaters and audio equipment. Bing Lee was a member of Retravision NSW for a number of years before leaving and joining the Narta Group. Bing Lee opened new stores in other Sydney suburbs and across New South Wales.
Founder Bing Lee died in 1987 (aged 79) and Ken Lee was appointed chairman.[7] Ken Lee died on 21 December 2007 of cancer (aged 75). His eldest son Lionel Lee took over as chief executive of the company.
Today, 16 of the 40 Bing Lee retail outlets are run by franchisees after franchising was introduced within the business in the early 2000s. Bing Lee has also held the management rights to the "Sony Centre" concept in NSW and the ACT, later closing those stores.
^Note that the name of the store and the founder are not the same. 并力电器 means "Bing Lee Electronics", where 并力 (bìng lì) literally means "combined power". This is the name of the store as displayed in Chinatown, Sydney. The actual name of the person, however, is surname 李 (lǐ), given name 冰 (bīng). This is technically not a homophone, as the tones of the syllables are different.
