Biedronka to launch online store?

Photo: sxc.hu

Sources quoted by daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna claim that Biedronka's owner, Portuguese-owned Jeronimo Martins Polska, is testing an online sales option.

The network is now at a pilot stage of a project that would involve the possibility of ordering goods online and then collecting them at a chosen store. The tests are said to be planned in several places, including the Tricity, in northern Poland.

A number of brick-and-mortar retail networks in Poland, such as Tesco, Alma Market, Piotr i Paweł and E. Leclerc, have already introduced online shopping. They usually offer both the option of collecting ordered goods at a store and a delivery option.

The new plan may bee seen as one of the ways to get Biedronka back on the growth track.

Jeronimo Martins has recently announced it would cut down its expansion plans for the Biedronka network due to lower-than-expected sales. It already has more than 2500 units across the country.

The nominal value of sales in Poland grew by 10.6 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of this year. However, when the figure is recalculated according to the like-for-like method, it shows a year-on-year drop by 1.3 percent.

The company has also started modifying its stores to suit the more affluent, and more picky, urban customer. Recently opened stores in the centres of major cities, including one on Warsaw's elegant Nowy Swiat street, seem to mark changes in Jeronimo Martins' strategy for Poland. (kw)