Fashion giant picks up speed

Peek & Cloppenburg expands into smaller cities

The clothing chain opened yesterday with a 2300 square meter store in Gmunden.(Bild: Kristof Puller )

Finally some good news from the retail sector: the German fashion giant Peek & Cloppenburg is on an expansion course - and also in smaller towns than before. On Thursday, head of sales Neofit Vasilev opened the 14th Austrian store in Gmunden in the Salzkammergut region, creating almost 25 jobs.

The new location is 2,300 square meters in size and therefore significantly smaller than other Peek & Cloppenburg (P&C) stores, such as the one on Vienna's Kärntner Straße with almost 12,000 square meters. Sales manager Vasilev: "At last there's some good news again after all the bad news we've been hearing from the clothing trade. We have a modern ambience here for our customers in the Salzkammergut!"

But P&C-the company employs around 1400 people here-has even bigger plans: "We are expanding at a rapid pace. In autumn/winter, we will open another store in Graz, in the Citypark, with just over 3000 square meters. We see further opportunities for new branches, for example in district capitals. And we are also planning to enter the Italian market this year from Vienna, in Milan and Bolzano."

In Austria, Peek & Cloppenburg is among the top 3
Vasilev wants to score points with the mix of own brands such as Christian Berg, Jakes and McNeal and well-known names such as Hugo Boss, adidas and Nike. Vasilev: "We have 160 brands in Gmunden alone. In many shopping centers, we are by far the most successful retailer in terms of sales. In the entire Austrian textile trade, we are certainly among the top 3, if not even stronger."

Head of Sales Neofit Vasilev and Sales Manager Lisa Spivak hope that people will spend more money on clothing again after the wage negotiations.(Bild: P&K Fotoservice Gmunden)

The big wave of price increases is over.
P&C "was unable to escape the general inflation when it came to prices. However, the price pressure is clearly easing in the new collections, which means that we have the wave behind us," says Vasilev. The manager also sees the strong wage increases in the last collective bargaining negotiations as positive: "Like the other retailers, it is a burden on us, but we are not thinking in such short-term terms. In the long term, this means more purchasing power, and if people have more money, they can also spend more on clothing."

Of course, the German P&C sister company based in Düsseldorf had to go through a difficult time last year: It had slipped into economic difficulties. Vasilev: "We successfully completed the insolvency proceedings under our own responsibility within six months and were one of the fastest proceedings ever. We didn't have to close a single store. We are now represented in 16 European countries, have 160 stores and 16,000 employees!"