Double store opening in Athens

The pace of new store openings in JYSK Greece has surely been fast lately. In only five months, impressive eight new stores have opened on the Greek market.

Latest, JYSK in Greece finished the current financial year with a double store opening in Athens on August 31st. According to Sales & Marketing Manager in Greece, Kostas Dimopoulos, both store openings were successful.

”The openings went very well for both stores. Actually, both stores managed to break the Greek record on the day of the opening and they are now ranked as number one and two measured on turnover of the opening day in Greece,” says Kostas, who participated in both openings. 

There are eight kilometers between the two stores. One of the stores opened in a commercial centre in Pireos, south of Athens, while the other store is located in Peristeri, in the western part of Athens. With the two new store openings, the total number of JYSK stores in Athens is now six along with further seven stores in Greece.

Specialists in great offers

The first JYSK store in Greece also opened its doors in the capital city Athens back in September 2015. Since then, JYSK has managed to get a good grasp of the Greek customers.   

”The number of customers is steadily growing and we are becoming more and more well known along with our expansion and building of our brand in Greece. We expect the very positive development to continue in the future,” says Kostas.

According to the Sales & Marketing Manager, JYSK’s Scandinavian roots differ from the Greek market in terms of design, even though the assortment of course is tailored the country where garden furniture season lasts almost all year.

”At JYSK we are specialists in giving the customers great offers and that of course attract the Greek. At the same time, they very much appreciate our Scandinavian brand and design along with our local presence, which is another important factor for our success,” says Kostas.

Good timing in spite of crisis

The success has come even though Greece in many ways differed from the other countries, in which JYSK Nordic was present, when deciding that the country rich on islands, on the southern point of the Balkan Peninsula, should be country number 38 on JYSK’s word map.   

Both culturally and in terms of climate the country was special, however, most noticeably was the Greek economy in crisis.

Here, JYSK saw opportunities.

”The financial situation actually fitted quite well with JYSK entering the Greek market. In spite of the financial crisis, the customers still need beds and furniture and JYSK offers value for money, which is what everybody seeks,” says Kostas and continues:

”At the same time, the economy will slowly grow stronger and when it does, we will already be established on the market. Actually, the financial situation was a small advantage for us when we started establishing the first stores as the rent was cheaper for us. Now we have a well established base which we can expand from,” Kostas explains. 

40 stores in five years

The plan for expansion in Greece has been clear from management in JYSK Nordic from the beginning.

“Currently, we work by a five year plan where the goal is to open 40 JYSK stores across the country. This means that we should continue to open eight to nine stores yearly, so we still have a lot of work ahead of us, however, we look forward to it,” says Kostas, who himself has worked in JYSK since the first store opened in Greece.

Looking forward, the plan is to open future stores in the larger cities outside of Athens and in the long run, also to open on some of the holiday islands like Crete and Rhodes.