Harrods London

I now told you about deparment stores in Holland. The best known department store in London is Harrods. This company is established  in Londond by Charles  Henry Harrod who started in 1835 with a Tea and Grosary warhouse. Gradually Charles Henry Harrod did expend the business into a big deparment store. Meanwhile Harrods have had many owners. Harrods is a specialized department store for luxuary products. Besides the Harrods concern consists of financial bank, named Harrods Bank, a estate company called Harrods Estate and an airline called  Air Harrods.  The Harrods department store counts 5000 employees and is well known for expensive, exclusive luxuary products. Nowadays it is impossible to visit Harrods by groups of people. This is for safety rules . inside the store it is not allowed to bear shoulder bags. This is for an unusable reason, namely the Queen how is frequent visitor of Harrods does not like that. The Harrods department store is immensely huge in fact it is a city in a city. Everything you can buy from pencil to diamond shoes of a million euro’s.

To please the customer extremely everything can be ordered in favour of the customer, even products that usually are not part of the assortment. It is also possible, after making an appointment, to shop with a personal shopper. In fact this is off course not a middle of the road deparment store like V&D.

Wehkamp

Another competite department store is the Wehkamp. This department store differs from the others. Wehkamp is namely originally a mail order company.  This means that product can be orded only by post. And the backbone of such a company is the product catalogue in which customers can choose there products. Ordering is possible by mail or telephone. Nowadays Wehkamp is developed to the biggest Dutch online webshop. The company is established in 1952 in a factory office by Herman Wehkamp. The assortment in that time consisted of mattresses and bedlinen. Ordering this products after radio and newspaper commercials was possible by post. The central Wehkamp store was in fact a warehouse.  Soon after the establishment of Wehkamp customers where able to pay in terms. This was fors ome people very attractive to buy because it was possible to get the product without paying the hole amount . soon the assortment highly extended. The assortment is to devided into the next categories like lady fashion, men and children fashion,Home and Garden,home appliancess, electronics, entertainend, sport & leisure and beauty & Wellness . The  Wehkamp assortment is consists in 2 seasons, each starting in January and  July. The seasons are represented in full color catalogues each consisting of 1000 pages and posted to all buying customers.

Hema

Another department store is the Hema.  The Hema department store is in a certain way competitor of the Bijenkorf and the V&D. The Hema company has stores in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and France. In Holland there are 455 stores and totally there are 534 branches, the foreign branches included. The Hema department store is specialized in products for daily use. Another specific aspect is that all products are exclusively produced for the Hema. The  abbriviation Hema stand for Dutch Unity Price company Amsterdam.  The First Hema branche is founded in Asterdam in 1926. The fisrt Hema store was a kind of stuntshop where products are very cheap. All products had same unit prices of 25 or 50 cents. Some years later the assortment was extended by articles with the unit price of 1 guilder. After the second world war Hema skipped the unit price philosophy. Until 1926 only rich people visited the department stores like the Bijenkorf.  All products where simly to expensive for the “normal” people who had less to spend. Until the establishment of the Hema store. Definitively the establishment of the Hema store meant a change: the Hema store was the shop for everyone.  The Hema is cheap and practically furnished and a sufficient assortment of products. For long time the image of the Hema was a poor people shop. Nowadays this image no longer exist because the Hema is the shop for everyone. As well as the other department stores the Hema had also a Restaurant, it is called The Hema Food Kiosk. Here you can buy the famous Hema sausage. Hema sell exclusively house brand products  like Miss Helen, a cosmetic product range.

products of the Vroom Dreesmann

As allready mentioned the V&D assortment is comparable with the Bijenkorf assortment. The V&D products can be shared in some categories like clothes, Shoes, furnishment , jewelry, watches, handbags, cosmetics, household items etc. besides in addition to the Bijenkorf assortment V&D offer also products in the range of leisure like sport  and campinglife. Furthermore V&D offer brands like Mexx, Nijntje en hunkemoller. Moreover V&D offer their exclusively house brand called Yes or No.  this brand is only available in V&D stores. In summer time The V&D stores are furnished  to sell school products it is called a school campus. Students can satisfy all their school needs in one special furnished department in the store.  This once a year event is to be promoted in the media.

The V&D is also accessable on internet and delivers online services for buying and delivering. This service off course is round the clock. The V&D company is to be consideret as the biggest department store in Holland. Although V&D and the Bijenkorf are both department stores there is a big difference in potential target groups. Generally  spoken the Bijenkorf customers have simply more to spend  and is able to permit more luxuary and exclusive products. Another difference is that the Bijenkorf offer products which are not really necessary and satisfy the need of “nice to have “.  The V&D department store is  accesable for everyone because A-brand as well as B-Brands are available. In addition the V&D assortment offers a large amount of products like clothes and general cosmetics everybody needs. At the end V&D is part of the Maxeda concern which is also connected with Praxis and the Bijenkorf.

Vroom & Dreesmann

The department store Bijenkorf naturally is not unique. There are competitors in the same business. Most important competitor is the V&D. V&D is founded in 1887 by Willem Vroom and Anton Dreesmann. The first store was opened in Amsterdam. Nowadays  Vroom & Dreesmann counts  62 stores devided in many Dutch towns.  So the V&D company  is bigger than the Bijenkorf.

The  V&D company has recently introduced the shop in shop formula. Which means that in each V&D store other sale companies are inhibited and contracted to do their business in the V&D building.  Shop compamies like Sephora, The Six, New Look and Dixons are making their sales on V&D estate.

The V&D assortment consists of Clothes, furnishment, cosmetics, shoes, handbags etc.

V&D also have a restaurant formula it is called, La Place. La Place is a restaurant that is not a complete part of the V&D concern. There is also a confectioner where pies, sweets and bobons are sold. V&D stores are less atmospheric and luxuary furnished then the Bijenkorf stores. The image of V&D is less expensive and exclusive then the Bijenkorf. The V&D assortment consists of more general brands and lower priced products. Nevertheless V&D and the Bijenkorf are real competitors. V&D as well as Bijenkorf have once a year sales actions. The V&D version of the three insane days is the so called price circus. In fact during these sales action V&D and Bijenkorf offer the same products but there is a difference in luxuary and image of the offered brands. Generally spoken V&D offer mainly B-Brands and some little A-Brands with lower prices and the Bijenkorf offer exclusive A-Brands against higher prices.

central information of the Bijenkorf

Most of the Bijenkorf stores are 7/7 open. Some of them are closed on Sunday. The average department store has more opening hours than other shops. On working days the Bijenkorf is open until 19:00 hour while other shops close at 18:00 hour.

Futher more the Bijenkorf has one late opening a week. The Bijenkorf is also accessable on internet and delivers online services for buying and delivering. This service off course is round the clock.

Once a year Bijenkorf organizes in all stores a  huge sales action. This sales action longs three days and each of the days has special offers with interesting high discounts. The discounts are huge and also concern exlusive brands.  This sales action is called the three insane days. The twelve Bijenkorf stores are during these days full of high discounted products  and due to the giant promotion activities in newspapers and  on television the stores are immensely crowded by almost outraged groups of customers. Indeed than the Bijenkorf is litterly a overcrowded beehive. Nowadays the three insane days are a famous phenomenon  which is official started by a celebrity like the 100 metre sprint in an athletic event. For instance in 2009 Jeroen van der Boom has given the starting signal in the Bijenkorf store Amsterdam. Thereafter he went to the other eleven stores to do the same. Georgina Verbaan finished the three insane days in the same year by the announce that Bijenkorf customers can win a special guest in the television soap Floor Faber. This off course is an attractive opportunity to meet famous Dutch people while buying profitable products.

Restaurant of the Bijenkorf

In the department store there are different restaurants and cafés. In most Bijenkorf stores there is a La Ruche restaurant in order to have a lunch or to diner. The Bijenkorf store Amsterdam offer Bijenkorf Kitchen for lunch, diner and beverage. These Bijenkorf restaurants are atmosperic and luxuary. In occasion of late openings these restaurants offer a good evening dishes and every month a new dish is special recommended.

Most of the Bijenkorf stores establish Bijenkorf cafés, named Cafe B, were people can order coffee and cake. The confectioner which is also present in most Bijenkord stores sells a huge assortment of pies handmade bonbons, sweets and a variety of wines.  The combination of making  shopping and consuming possible is attractive for the consumers and is a guaranty to have a long stay in the store. Which means a bigger chance for buying Bijenkorf products during their visit. Also important is the luxuary atmosphere where people feel confortable so they expere Bijenkorf shopping as a pleasant activity. In this situation consumer and company form a happy marriage.  The customer enjoys luxuary and the atmospheric  way of shopping and get offered where he or she is looking for. Surely when you realize that you can find all products under one roof.  This is the ultimate experience of one stop shopping.  Off course this created situations is part of the company philophosy:  making highest possible profit: people in a good mood and being in a plentyfull assortment are apted to buy more than they planned. Weekly 2 million customers visit the Bijenkorf.