Austria's bauMax DIY retailer this year expects its Romanian sales to double to 120m euros as 3 new stores will be added to the network.
BauMax will operate 8 stores by late 2008 and in 2009 will enter the Bucharest market, where it wants 4 stores on the medium term.
"The only goal we haven't reached last year was the expansion pace. We wanted to open more stores, but getting licences for the locations we chose lasted more than expected," says J?rg Bierlein, general manager of bauMax Romania.
The network, which added 3 stores in 2007, targets an expansion pace of 5 stores per year, but Bierlein says this will not be reached in 2008, either. Instead, he counts on expansion to pick up speed in 2009, when at least 5 new stores should be opened. Two of these will be located in Bucharest and Oradea.
The company will tap into the Bucharest market next year, with a store located in Sun Plaza shopping centre in Berceni.
The acquisition of a domestic rival may speed up bauMax expansion, but Bierlein says such a move would not fit the company's strategy. On medium term, bauMax plans to develop a 30-store DIY network by late 2011, with 4 stores to be located in Bucharest, according to the company's manager.
BauMax last year opened 3 stores, reaching a 5-store network domestically in the wake of 10m-euro investments per store. The company entered Romania in the autumn of 2006, when it opened 2 stores in Brasov and Sibiu. BauMax Romania's sales reached 61m euros in 2007, according to the company's data.
"Our best opening was in Craiova, in 2007. The store had 30,000 visitors on the day it was opened, of whom 10,000 customers," specifies Bierlein.
The retailer for this year announced 3 new stores, in Suceava, Bacau and Ploiesti.
The performance of Romanian market stores, calculated in terms of sales per square metre, has exceeded that of the company's Austrian stores, mainly due to differences between the formats developed on the 2 markets, says Bierlein.
He specifies a bigger format was decided for the Romanian market so that demand for construction materials could be better met. "Romania is a very important market for bauMax. I still see growth potential on the constructions market in the next 10 years," says Bierlein.
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