Prices going down, down, down

Country manager Chris Plüss is eyeing market leadership in Switzerland for Fressnapf in the long term. The chain currently has 44 stores there and an online shop that was launched eighteen months ago at the same time as Zooplus.ch. The stores have an average retail area of 450 m2 and stock 6 500 products for all pets, with the focus on pet food and accessories for dogs and cats. No live animals are sold. New stores in the pipeline Chris Plüss aims to open four more new stores this year, and plans are in hand for five to ten new outlets in the coming year. Fressnapf is currently well represented in the German- and French-speaking areas of the country, but perceives further potential for growth in central Switzerland. In the medium term, Chris Plüss can foresee having 70 Fressnapf stores in the country to give it a reasonable presence in all regions. The introduction of ten to twelve XXL stores with live pets is also a possible option for him in the future. Fressnapf has attracted considerable attention in Switzerland this year by cutting prices across its entire product range by an average of roughly 8 per cent. After failing to see any growth in sales in 2012, the company achieved a “single-digit” increase in revenues in the first eight months of the year, according to Chris Plüss. Volume growth was into double figures as a result of the price-cutting campaigns. Chris Plüss regards the closer attention to prices as part of an extensive repositioning. Since the beginning of 2011, the company has been run from the Fressnapf head office in Krefeld as a national subsidiary. “We aim to cover every price category in our stores, including the low-price segment. This has become popular in Switzerland thanks to the increased presence of discounters and the Swiss retail chain Landi,” the country manager explains. An important element of the reorientation of Fressnapf is the conversion of outlets into “future stores”. Two thirds of all the stores were already designed according to the standard layout system, with the rest to follow in the next few months. By increasing the shelving height to two metres, something that is being implemented in all pet food departments, Fressnapf is able to stock 30 per cent more products. As well as private labels, which currently account for 25 per cent of sales, other popular brands such as Rinti, Miamor and Héry are sold. A new feature of the stores is a so-called “low price zone”, in which price-conscious pet owners will find a…