“When I took over the operations, we had seven stores and during my term I’ve opened ten,” said Lavinia Ivas, general manager of Douglas, in her first interview.
She has run the local operations since 2011, when she replaced Paul Cuza, currently head of the local operations of Inditex, Zara owner.
Previously, Ivas has worked for several years for Sensiblu pharmacies, being part of the team that brought cosmetics brand L’Occitane in Romania.
“It’s been a swift and natural shift. Douglas asked me to take over the current position and I said yes. Looking back, I’d summarize my term like this: many openings and projects and even more new brands brought exclusively, such as Sospiro or Carven”.
Douglas entered the Romanian market in the autumn of 2007 and now has a 17-unit network in 12 cities. In 2013, revenue stood at EUR12.5 million.
“Romanian retail and local consumption behavior differs from that in the region and the West. If we look at Italy, where there are hundreds of perfume shops, I’d say there’s a lot of room for growth in Romania as well. However, we’re speaking of different markets, so that it’s hard to say where we will be in five years’ time”.
Lavinia Ivas does not give any figures. She just says she’s focusing on cities with over 150,000 inhabitants. The German-held company, controlled by investment fund Advent, opened its first store of Romania in Targu-Mures.
Ivas says the chain brought in Romania a concept that was already tested in other countries.
All Douglas units are opened in shopping centers as Romanians prefer to go shopping in malls.
Since the start of this year, the company has opened a unit in Brasov’s Coresi mall and is set to open another one in Bucharest’s Mega Mall.
“Our best stores are in Bucharest,” Ivas says without giving any details about sales or malls. She says, though, that the next openings will be in new projects as the existing ones are covered.
In 2013, Douglas had revenue worth RON55 million (EUR12.5 million) and the business grew in 2014, especially on a like-for-like increase in already existing stores and also on the opening in AFI Palace Cotroceni, according to Ivas.
Douglas operates on the segment of luxury cosmetics, a market Lavinia Ivas values at EUR100 million. “The number of independent players left on the market is very small. They operate in the cities where we are not present and have a smaller product offering, focused on perfumes. We are not battling on the same segment with pharmacies and there is no strong competition from the online segment, either. However, like in all the other industries, there is a parallel market”.
Douglas stores have over 10,000 products in its offering, with around 3,000 having prices of below RON50. The cheapest shower gel costs RON9. At the opposite end, though, the most expensive perfume costs RON1,600-1,700. “We have clients for these. We have a wide range of products and our clients are mainly women”.
In Douglas sales in Romania, perfumes weigh the heaviest, almost half, followed by makeup products and care ones. On developed markets such as France personal care products lead in sales. This points to the lack of education and low purchasing power, hence future growth potential.
About recent years, Lavinia Ivas says they were different. 2014, though, was a good one and she hopes 2015 will be the same.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)