“We are not on target after the first half, our growth is only 30%. We hope to catch up in the second half, though, which generates about 60% of the sales of the computer, electronics and home appliances,” says Loredana Butnaru, who took the reins of Miele Appliances Romania last year. Butnaru, 38, had previously worked for distributor Marelvi as general manager, but spent most of the time building her career at Gorenje in Bucharest and London.
Miele Appliances Romania’s revenue is the sum of the sales of home appliances, consumables, accessories and professional products, as well as service revenue.
Germany’s Miele officially entered Romanian retail via a distributor in 2007, which it later took over. It initially had a showroom in Otopeni, near Bucharest, which it closed not long ago and relocated to Piata Presei Libere on the ground floor of one of the City Gate towers in northern Bucharest.
Loredana Butnaru says Miele is not in sync with the home appliances market because its target is different. The crisis, however, did affect its sales because Miele depends on housing development, which has been dwindling in the past few years.
Miele also has a home appliances component plant in Brasov, which it opened in 2009 following a EUR24 million investment. The plant posted RON160 million revenue last year, up 45% on 2012.
Miele sells its home appliances in Romania via its showroom in Bucharest and via partners. Retail contributes 35% of its revenue, and the percentage is going down.
“We sell Miele products via three partner categories on the business to business segment (which generates 65% of the revenue). We have Miele exclusive partners, businesses that open similar stores to the showroom in Bucharest. We also have sales in specialist luxury furniture stores and our main partner here is Rovere, and independent computer, electronics and home appliances retail stores.
Although independent retailers were the hardest hit by the crisis, and many went out of the business, Loredana Butnaru says small retailers still exist throughout the country who managed to stand out and survive in the competition with large specialist chains, online stores and hypermarket or cash & carry chains.
Miele Appliances wants to have the number of partner stores grow to 40 on all three segments in 2014 from the 23 last year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)