Money Buzz! Europa

Category: Retail

  • Ikea opens a ”miniature store” in Berlin-Pankow

    Ikea opens a ”miniature store” in Berlin-Pankow

    Ikea’s opened it’s first “planning studio” in Germany. Customers cannot take products with them and only plan kitchens or the installation of bedroom cabinets.

    The shop has only 500 square meters of floor space. By comparison, Ikea’s furniture store in Tempelhof is 44 times the size at 22.000 square feet.

    Ikea tested the new branch concept in a few other countries and cities, including Copenhagen and Paris. 

    „By the end of 2021, Ikea plans to open a total of four to five of these studios in Berlin and Brandenburg,including a city store in a top-selling location, where large parts of the normal range can also be purchased”, writes Der Tagesspiegel.

  • Carrefour has reached an agreement to acquire 172 Supersol stores in Spain

    Carrefour has reached an agreement to acquire 172 Supersol stores in Spain

    The transaction involves 172 convenience stores and supermarkets, located mainly in Andalusia and the Madrid region. The enterprise value of the transaction is 78 million euros.

    The acquired stores posted net sales of around 450 million euros in 2019.

    Carrefour plans to convert the acquired stores to the convenience (Express), supermarket (Market) and Supeco formats.

    This acquisition will contribute to the development of food e-commerce, with the stores eventually becoming new order pick-up points.

    Around 90% of the acquired stores are located in large cities (Madrid, Malaga, Cadiz and Seville).

    The transaction is subject to customary conditions and is expected to close at the beginning of 2021.

  • Screwfix to open 40 new stores this year. 400 new jobs

    Screwfix to open 40 new stores this year. 400 new jobs

    Screwfix to open 40 stores this year, creating around 400 new jobs. 30 new stores are planned for the UK and 10 for Ireland.

    30 new stores in the UK will create up to 300 jobs in areas such as retail management, service assistants and supervisor roles, by the end of January 2021.

    More than 10 stores are planned in the Republic of Ireland, which will create up to 160 jobs over the same period.

    Screwfix has more than 680 stores, with a long-term target of 800 in the UK.

    Screwfix currently has five stores in Ireland, which opened in early 2020 and plans to open up to 40 stores in the country over the coming years, creating around 400 jobs in total.

  • LC Waikiki developed its own Instagram direct sales model in Kyrgyzstan

    LC Waikiki developed its own Instagram direct sales model in Kyrgyzstan

    LC Waikiki implemented a special application in Kyrgyzstan. With this app providing access to products through LC Waikiki Kyrgyzstan’s official Instagram account you can buy the products you like.

    The Turkish brand has developed its own Instagram direct sales model, which will be implemented for the first time in Kyrgyzstan.

    Trendy pieces of the season will be prepared as a digital catalogue and will be presented to the customers via LC Waikiki Kyrgyzstan Instagram account.

    It is possible to place orders online between 09:00 and 18:00 every day of the week through an Whatsapp Business Line.

    Orders arrive within 24 hours.

  • Billa opens flagship store on Vienna’s Michaelerplatz

    Billa opens flagship store on Vienna’s Michaelerplatz

    The new Billa flagship store on Michaelerplatz is located in a very special location – the premises of the former Café Griensteidl.

    Billa has captured the cultural past with an extraordinary shop concept.

    On a sales area of around 700 sq m, divided into two levels, customers are offered a selected range of regional, national and international products.

    It is the ninth branch in Vienna’s city centre.

    26 new jobs have been created at this location from a total of 36 employees employed in the branch.

  • Dutch non-food discounter Action enters the Czech Republic

    Dutch non-food discounter Action enters the Czech Republic

    Action, the international non-food discounter, has opened its first two stores in the Czech Republic.

    The stores in Hradec Králové and Kladno will be followed by three more openings in the Moravia-Silesia region during the first two weeks of September, in Ostrava, Opava and Frýdek-Místek.

    Action says that they have „the lowest prices in over 1,600 stores across Europe”.

    With about 6,000 products on the shelves, Action offers a broad range of products at low prices – at least 1,500 products sold in Action stores cost less than CZK 25.

    The product range, with items from over 350 well-known brands and more than 70 private labels, consists of 14 categories: decoration, DIY, toys and entertainment, stationery and hobby, multimedia, household goods, garden and outdoor, laundry and cleaning, pet, sport, clothing and linen.

    Action announced its entry into the Czech market at the beginning of 2020 and the discounter’s expansion in the country will be rapid.

    Every store will employ approx. 15 employees.

  • Shopping centre Lippulaiva to become a pioneer of sustainable energy solutions

    Shopping centre Lippulaiva to become a pioneer of sustainable energy solutions

    Shopping centre Lippulaiva Helsinki, due to be opened in spring 2022, will become the flagship of local energy production.

    The largest geothermal heating and cooling facility for a commercial building in Europe is being built under the shopping centre, and it will generate carbon-free energy to meet almost the entire heating and cooling needs of the shopping centre.

    Beneath the shopping centre, 171 wells extending to a depth of approximately 300 metres have been drilled.

    The power plant, developed by Adven, the leading energy company in the Nordics, will generate carbon-free energy to meet almost the entire heating and cooling needs of the shopping centre.

    Thanks to the large amount of renewable energy generated in the facility and its low energy consumption, Lippulaiva will become nearly a zero-energy building.

    An additional useful feature of the geothermal solution is that there is no need to install condensers on the roof of the shopping centre and the space can be used for green roofs and solar panels instead.

    The shopping centre will have more than 3.500 square metres of green roofs, which will also help conserve energy. Solar panels will also be installed on the roof of the shopping centre to generate electricity for the shopping centre’s lifts and escalators and the illumination of the centre’s public spaces.

    Ecological modes of transport

    Services involving electric-powered modes of transport are developed in the entire area of greater Espoonlahti by providing parking spaces and charging stations for electric cars and bicycles.

    The current plans include a maximum of 250 charging stations for electric and hybrid cars.

    Ecological modes of transport are also supported by offering parking spaces for about 1.500 bicycles. A theme day around electric-powered modes of transport is also being planned.

    The new Lippulaiva will be opened in spring 2022. The gross leasable area of the shopping centre will be 44.000 square metres and there will be about 80 retail stores and service providers in the shopping centre.

    Approximately eight million customers are estimated to visit the shopping centre every year.

  • RC Europe opens its third Nest retail park in Romania, in Oradea

    RC Europe opens its third Nest retail park in Romania, in Oradea

    The Czech real estate developer RC Europe to open on August 27 the third retail park of the group in Romania, after a total investment of 9 million euro.

    The retail park is under the nest brand and located in Oradea, occupying approximately 6.500 sq m GLA. Construction works on the project started in October 2019.

    Nest retail park Oradea is on Calea Borșului in the northern part of the city in the proximity of Lidl and Kaufland. The project has a parking lot with 200 places and accommodates 13 retail stores of local and international brands, including JYSK, Martes Sport, Sportisimo, CCC, ZOO Center, KIK, PEPCO, dm-drogerie markt, and Zoomania. 

    Nest Oradea is the second retail park project RC Europe delivered in 2020, following the opening of Nest Miercurea Ciuc in May.

    The first Nest retail park project opened in Romania was in Dorohoi, in 2017. Besides Romania, the company operates two Nest retail parks in Serbia, where it also plans to develop new projects in 2020.

    In Romania, RC Europe owns five office buildings: two in Pitesti, and the rest in Craiova, Drobeta and Slatina, totalizing over 18,000 sq m GLA.

    The company has also in pipeline a Class A office building in Bucharest, Arc Office Building, with 30,000 sq m GLA and a new retail park in Sighisoara.

  • H&M, collaboration with the luxury Italian brand Giuliva Heritage

    H&M, collaboration with the luxury Italian brand Giuliva Heritage

    H&M announces a collaboration with the luxury Italian brand Giuliva Heritage. Family-owned Giuliva Heritage take classic menswear silhouettes into the world of womenswear.

    Margherita Cardelli and husband Gerardo Cavaliere, Giuliva Heritage’s founders, are passionate about long lasting fashion in great fabrics.

    Together with H&M, the couple created a modern take on Italian heritage with a collection made from materials from more sustainable sources. Recycled fabrics have been used throughout.

    The collection will be available in selected stores worldwide, as well as on hm.com, from the 3rd of September.

    “It was wonderful to work with H&M on this collection. Together, we created easy transitional pieces with designs that stand the test of time. We were especially delighted to use recycled materials with every look”, Gerardo Cavaliere and Margherita Cardelli Cavaliere.

  • Castorama launches 24/7 parcel collection kiosk trial in Poland

    Castorama launches 24/7 parcel collection kiosk trial in Poland

    Castorama Poland installed its first Click & Collect parcel collection kiosk, ”CastoMat”, at its Popularna Street store in Warsaw.

    Products are ready for collection within two hours of placing an order (for orders placed during the store’s opening hours).

    The lockers are located outside the entrance to the store and can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week via a PIN code sent to the customer’s mobile phone or email address.

    The first CastoMat kiosk is a trial and was introduced following an increase in e-commerce orders and the growing number of customers now opting to use Click & Collect for their online home improvement orders.

  • CCC mobile application was downloaded over 2 million times by customers

    CCC mobile application was downloaded over 2 million times by customers

    The mobile application of CCC has been downloaded by customers over 2 million times after less than 1.5 years from its launch.

    The application is already available on six markets, in Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Austria and Hungary, and there are plans to introduce it for two more.

    The app receives good user ratings – an average of 4.4 in the Google Play Store and 4.7 in the App Store.

    The CCC application has a number of useful functionalities such as visual search (IOS and soon for Android), checking the availability of products in stationary stores, access to your CCC Club card and the possibility of joining it.

    CCC team is working on developing new functions.

    In last year’s edition of the Ecommerce Awards competition organized by the Chamber of Electronic Economy, the CCC application won in the “Best on mobile” category.

  • SPAR Switzerland adds fully electric truck to its fleet

    SPAR Switzerland adds fully electric truck to its fleet

    SPAR Switzerland has added a fully electric vehicle to its fleet. The new e-truck, a 264kW (360hp) e-truck from MAN, will transport food products emission-free and almost silently from the central warehouse to SPAR stores in the Appenzell region and Thurgau.

    SPAR Switzerland first started using hybrid trucks at the end of 2011. In 2017, a more modern and economical Euro 6 engine used to supply SPAR stores in the capital city Zurich, replaced this truck.

    The new e-truck can cover around 180km per charge, depending on the climatic and topographical conditions. Thanks to the sophisticated braking energy recovery system, the 180km range can be extended.

    A display in the cockpit informs the driver on the current energy capacity.

    The new e-truck will be used in the Appenzell region in the morning and in Thurgau in the afternoon. The silent e-truck can save 19,000 litres of diesel per year, leading to a reduction of 50 tonnes in CO2 emissions.