National Buying Group (NBG) merchant Partner TEC Supplies Group has scooped won KBB Review's Bathroom Retailer of the Year award.

The TEC Lifestyle 20,000sq ft showroom and store, part of the TEC Supplies Group in Maldon, Essex, opened in April 2016 and is already showing impressive growth. Styled beautifully and finished to an extremely high specification, the TEC Lifestyle showroom has drawn customers as diverse as developers, interior designers and architects, as well as home owners and tradesmen.

TEC was selected as the KBB Bathroom Retailer of the Year for its all-round retail quality. Judges carried out stringent inspections of the business and looked at factors including business success, marketing, showroom quality, customer service and after-sales performance, as well as showroom effectiveness for its target audience, unique ideas and initiative, which are demonstrated in abundance in the showroom.

TEC Lifestyle is part of the Tec Supplies Group Ltd, an independent family-owned and run merchanting business based in Maldon. Tec Supplies has been trading successfully for 40 years, originally as an electrical wholesaler before diversifying into plumbing supplies in 2006. The company relocated these businesses to a 2.5 acre site in nearby Heybridge in 2016 to make way for the TEC Lifestyle kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, and home interiors store in its original premises. TEC is a long-standing member of NBG, joining in 2006 with the launch of the plumbing supplies business. It stocks over 15,000 products in one of Essex's largest merchanting sites.

"We are really proud of what we have achieved in such a short time in the TEC Lifestyles business," said managing director Westley Crozier. "This has represented a considerable investment for the business and this award - as well as the business success we have achieved - shows that we are doing lots of things well."

Independent merchant buying group NBG has £850m of end-user sales and 82 partner merchants who collectively own nearly 300 outlets across the whole of the UK.