Retail business increasingly important

Plaček went into the retail business in the Czech Republic five years ago. Now it has 30 outlets there with an overall retail area of 9 000 m², and sector experts rank it the number two Czech speciality retailer after Pet Center. In Slovakia and Latvia, where Plaček has managed to expand quickly through acquisitions and mergers, the company is even the market leader. Plaček operates 18 stores in Slovakia with a total retail area of 5 400 m². Although the company started its first outlets there as franchise operations, it now runs most of the stores itself. In Latvia, Plaček has 27 stores with a total area of 3 620 m². In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the stores are operated under the Super Zoo logo, and in Latvia as Dino Zoo, the name of an earlier pet product chain in which Plaček acquired a majority holding at the end of 2009 and has taken over completely this year. With a few exceptions, all the stores operated by Plaček offer a wide range of pets for sale. Plaček prefers its stores to be located in attractive retail parks with a high footfall. There are not very many of these in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, however, and in Latvia virtually none. The advantage of such locations is that the rents in the retail parks are considerably lower than in the shopping malls that abound in central and eastern Europe. In addition, it is considerably more convenient for customers of a pet store to carry a sack of dog food from the shop to an adjacent parking space than to lug it through a shopping mall to the car park, which is usually some distance away. The Super Zoo stores in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are mostly neighbourhood stores with a retail area of 350 m² and a range of around 4 000 products. One feature common to all stores is that they are situated in the vicinity of popular chains like Kaufland, Hypernova-Albert and Tesco and specialist stores like DM (chemist), KiK (textile goods) and Drácik (toys) and have ample parking at their disposal. Plaček also has larger stores of over 500 m² in size, which present a bigger range of products in all categories of goods than the other stores. In these outlets, special emphasis is placed on presenting themed elements. One such store operated by the company is on a busy access road to Europark, one of the busiest shopping centres in Prague. This Superzoo has extensive enclosures housing pets for sale and offers customers spacious, clearly laid-out shelving aisles. The architecture of the ornamental fish…