Ten years Romania

Hornbach Romania, one of the main DIY retailers in Romania, will launch the online store in the first half of next year. The announcement was made in June at a press conference on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the German retailer's presence on the Romanian DIY market. Albrecht Hornbach, the president of the Board of Directors of Hornbach Management AG was also present at the conference.
In the ten years of activity on Romania's market, Hornbach has invested almost € 145 mio, opened six stores (three in Bucharest and one in Brasov, Timisoara and Sibiu), with a total sales area of 86 600 m² and has created 730 jobs.
The first store of the network was the Berceni store in Bucharest, with a sales area of over 23 000 m², which opened in July 2007. All the stores which followed have a similar sales area, the only exception being the store in Sibiu, with 12 000 m², bought from the competitor Obi, which has since left the Romanian market.
There are 60 000 pro­ducts available in the Hornbach stores with an order capacity of up to 120 000 products, the only exception being the Sibiu store, which is limited to just 30 000 pro­ducts due to the size of the sales area.
According to the data provided by the Ministry of Finance, Hornbach Romania had a sales growth of 16.42 per cent in 2016 compared to 2015, i.e. from almost € 121 mio in 2015 to almost € 142 mio in 2016. The departments with the strongest sales are gardening, drive in and plumbing, followed by tools, decorations and paints.

"The Romanian customers' response was positive from the beginning and we are very happy that we have overcome the difficult times caused by the financial and economic crises in 2009. The construction and renovation projects are again in the foreground and we have plans to grow", said Albrecht Hornbach, the president of the Board of Directors of Hornbach Management AG.
The new online store will have over 120 000 products available and deliverable throughout the whole country, not only in the areas where the retailer has its stores. In technical terms, the online store platform in Romania is the same as in Germany. "We have already set up a department within the company that is dedicated to this project; considered the most important for the evolution of the company and for the…