Change of plan
Vincent Hoogduijn, European general manager for pan-European etailer Komplett, spoke to HEXUS.channel to explain why it has closed its UK, German, French and Austrian sites.
“This is a minor consolidation as those markets were quite small for us. It’s very difficult to get a large footprint in countries like the UK and Germany,” said Hoogduijn. “Two years ago our strategy was one of geographical expansion, now we want to focus on sales growth in our strongest territories.”
Komplett will now focus on Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. One of the first steps in its new strategy will be to open a new office in Dublin later this year.
We asked what was going to happen to customers who still have orders or warranties outstanding. “We are closed for new business but the customer service team is still going,” stressed Hoogduijn.
Asked if there was anything specific about the UK market that made success here hard to achieve, Hoogduijn said: “It hasn’t been the best year on the IT side for the UK. Our marketing spend was not very effective as there are so many other players and the small ones are always hit first.”
The difficulty experienced by Komplett in expanding across Europe is bound to further increase the pressure on the EU to make cross-border online trading easier.
