The Kakadu retail chain was launched in spring 2008 with ambitious plans. It was created by a merger of the three chains Anna Zoo, Pyszczak and AB, and the aim was to have up to 100 outlets by 2015. However, the chain quickly got into financial difficulties and was finally taken over in December 2014 by the Plaček Group. In addition to the Kakadu chain, the dynamic company operates the online shop
www.telekarma.pl.
"A market with a great future"
Today there are 46 Kakadu stores across Poland with an average retail area of 300 m2. The Plaček Group has changed many aspects of its store chain concept. "We created a new concept with new colours, shelving, a lot of emotion and live animals," Dušan Plaček told PET worldwide some years ago after the relaunch of the stores. "In my opinion it's the best concept on the Polish market nowadays and by number of stores and turnover we are the leader in the Polish market."
He believes the Polish market has a great future and the biggest potential of all the countries in which he operates. It doesn't bother him that the Fressnapf Group is also growing strongly in the country. "Fressnapf is a competitor for us but the Polish pet market is big enough for a minimum of three big players anyway, and so the competition is not so big between us," he said in an interview with PET worldwide marking the opening of his 250th store (see page 10). He points out that with its emphasis on live pets, his company operates a different concept from Fressnapf. "For both of us, the biggest competitor in the Polish market is the pure online business," he adds. In saying this he may have had in mind Europe's leading online pet retailer Zooplus, which increased its sales from 110.1 mio euros to 137.1 mio euros in 2019.
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In 2021, the Plaček Group wants to open ten new Kakadu stores. "It will be the biggest expansion since we bought the company," points out Dušan Plaček. "Prior to acquisition by us, Kakadu suffered losses of one mio euros per year. We took important steps and made changes, and two years later the company realised a profit. We have managed this success with the same management team under the leadership of Grzegorz Walaszcyk."
Live pets are a permanent feature of all Kakadu stores.