This year’s plan is to open stores in Bucuresti Mall and Plaza Romania, where the brand used to operate under a franchisee owned by Octavian Radu. The British brand is now available in Romania via the MRPI group, which holds the franchise for both Romania and Bulgaria, where it, too, has a store.
MRPI’s website shows it to be a Bulgarian group with real estate operations in several countries in the world, most of which in Central and Eastern Europe. The group buys land, does real estate development, serves as a broker between customers and local contractors and does portfolio management. MRPI will operate Debenhams in Romania via Bucuresti Fashion Retail Two.
“Our plan is to develop at a rate of two stores per year in Romania, but it is very much up to opportunities in terms of locations and size of the available space,” says Chris Harper, sales manager of MRPI.
He had previously worked for Debenhams in the UK for 22 years and by 25 had become senior store manager of the sixth largest Debenhams store in that country by sales. He later joined the international division and assisted the development in Bulgaria as franchise manager. Harper then became sales manager of MRPI, in which position he is in charge of all the retail projects of the group, including development of the Debenhams brand in Romania.
The first Debenhams store in Romania, which takes up 2,800 square meters and required more than EUR1 million investment, will open in Bucuresti Mall at the end of the month. The store occupies three levels and will sell apparel and homeware, as well as cosmetics and beauty products. Under the new franchisee, the Debenhams stores will sell all the collections available in stores abroad.
The cosmetics area alone, which sells products from brands like Dior, Lancome, Givenchy, Estee Lauder and L’Oreal, takes up 270 square meters. The store will operate like a department store, taking on both fashion retailers Zara and H&M (which sell both apparel and homeware), as well as cosmetics and perfume retailers Sephora and Douglas.
“We expect 1 million visitors to the store in the first year,” the representatives of the Bulgarian franchise holder said.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)