Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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By Bennett Voyles For 88 years HeMa's low prices have made this amsterdam- based housewares discount chain a fa- vorite of the allegedly frugal Dutch. at home its shops remain the ubiquitous, go-to places for just about anything. But as HeMa (the name is an acro- nym for Hollandsche eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij amsterdam — Dutch standard Prices Company amster- dam) heads into its ninth decade, it begins to face some hurdles. Market saturation and stiff competition from even-lower-price rivals is pressing the company to seek growth abroad, particularly in the U.K. This means opportunity if HeMa can catch on among Britons, but there is some risk too, observers say, given the company's limited experience managing an inter- national empire. HeMa's first British store, a 225-square-meter (about 2,420 square feet) shop at the Victoria Place shop- ping Centre, next to london's Victoria station, opened this past June. stores in the london boroughs of Kingston and Bromley are to follow shortly. HeMa, founded in 1926, remains a Dutch retail fixture — one in three Dutch boys and one in five Dutch women wear HeMa underwear, and every tenth home uses HeMa statio- nery, according to the company. But how well all of that will translate into english looking ahead is the ques- tion. less comprehensive than swed- ish home-furnishings giant Ikea, less quirky than Danish variety newcomer Tiger, and a tad more expensive than Poundland and other U.K. pound stores (the British equivalent of the U.s. dollar store), HeMa will have its work cut out before it can establish a distinct identity in the increasingly crowded British discount market. Though HeMa has enjoyed some success in Belgium and to a lesser extent in France, a campaign in Ger- many failed to fly, according to ana- lyst Denise Klug, of Planet retail, a european retail consultant firm. HeMa's stocking of only private- label goods and its locations in just a handful of obscure towns made it hard for the chain to become famil- iar to Germans, Klug says. Currently, the chain operates nearly 700 stores across the Netherlands, Belgium, r e t a i l i n g t o d a y HEMA discount chain arrives in U.K. 38 S C t / O c t O b e r 2 0 1 4 MICHIGAN AVENUE 5th AVENUE Bialow takes you where you need to be. Our experienced team is skilled at tailoring a regional or national expansion plan that meets each retailer's individual needs. or 781.444.2316 | www.bialow.com