“We don’t work with Romanian suppliers because they do not have the necessary production capacity for us. We’re talking orders of millions of units,” says Marcin Stanko, chief operating officer of the Pepco group.
The retailer does know, however, that there is expertise (in apparel, footwear or home décor items manufacturing for instance i.e.) in Romania, so it is considering finding local partners, the executive added.
Pepco arrived in Romania less than five years ago, and works with suppliers from Asia, UK and Netherlands.
To be able to keep prices low, discount retailers negotiate with suppliers’ orders for all the markets they operate on or at least for those in the same region. They place large orders so they can afford to negotiate prices.
Pepco has 250 stores in Romania and posted more than 1 billion lei (over EUR200 million) sales last year.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)