On the way to market leadership

Christian Pop graduated from the Aerospace Engineering Faculty a few years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, back in 1989. In those confused days, the climate was not quite right for such a highly specialised technical career, and so he ended up working in a distribution company for the “Pedigree” and “Whiskas” brands. “After having accumulated enough knowledge, it was time to set up my own distribution company,” reports Christian Pop. His company Pet Product was established in 1998, initially functioning as a pet accessories distributor in the area of Romania’s capital Bucharest. Three years later the first retail shop Animax was opened. Almost every year since then, a new shop has been added. Today, the Animax chain numbers five shops in Bucharest, two in Timisoara, one in Constantza on the Black Sea and the latest store in Sibiu. The first shop, which opened in 2001 in Bucharest, had an area of 185 m². “Opening a shop of such a size was a challenge,” Christian Pop continues. “At the time shops had an average size of around 15 m². We aim for all our shops in the big shopping malls to have in excess of 100 m² each.” Since its establishment the company has grown in size to the extent that its workforce has increased from 2 to 114. Now 61 employees, 11 of whom are veterinarians, work in the Animax shops, while the distribution department has 53 employees, including 12 salesmen and 6 promoters. The company has two different divisions: the Animax shops on the one hand, which stock around 3 000 products, and the wholesale division Pet Products on the other, with brands from Imac, Padovan, Schesir, Kippsy (all Italian), Guabi (Brazil), Zolux (France), Patagon (Netherlands), Bosch (Germany) and Mira-Mar (Czech Republic). Other brands are also sold in the shops, like Royal Canin, Nutro, Hill’s, Iams and Eukanuba, Ferplast, Karlie, Tetra, Sera, JBL etc., which are imported by the parent company Pet Product, and brands sold on the Romanian market. “The advantage of our image as a shop representative of this field gives us the possibility to familiarise the clients with the products we import,” says Christian Pop. The company serves more than 700 other pet shops, veterinary clinics and pharmacies. Some articles are also delivered to supermarkets like Cora, Metro, Billa and Auchan. Pet food accounts for the majority of the turnover, while the rest is accessories: about 50 per cent are dog-related items, some 25 per cent are products for cats, 16 per cent for fish…