SOFIA (Bulgaria), November 9 (SeeNews) – Greek technology and entertainment retail chain Publicworld plans to invest over 10 million euro ($15 million) in Bulgaria in the next three years, Sofia-based business daily Dnevnik reported on Monday.
The main segment of retail goods in the chain are computers and peripherals, TVs and video, MP3 and home audio, mobile phones and GPS devices, cameras and camcorders, software and gaming, toys and gadgets, design stationary, and others, accounting for over 60% of the company’s sales in Greece and Cyprus. Books and comics, music and movies account for the remainder.
“We want to focus on two main factors that influence the choice of our customers: pleasant atmosphere and interactive environment”, Dnevnik quoted the CEO of the company's Bulgarian unit Public Bulgaria, Aristotelis Photilas, as saying in its online edition (www.dnevnik.bg).
The idea is to introduce an unconventional retail concept, known within the industry as retailtainment, Photilas said, adding that the company expects to snag a market share in Bulgaria similar to its exposure in Greece.
“Currently our main competitors on the market of home electronics and IT products in Bulgaria are Technopolis, Technomarket and Domo. Our research shows that the attention span of shoppers at high-tech stores is up to 20 seconds per product. At the same time, given the opportunity to try out every single gadget in a Public stores, our clients allocate about two minutes on average per product,” Photilas explains.
Public Bulgaria opened its first store on November 6 in the Black Sea coastal city of Varna. A second one is planned to open doors in Sofia by the end of April next year.
“In Bulgaria, people usually download music directly from the Internet but we believe that this trend may change soon, as there are more and more customers that want to buy an original soundtrack of their favourite band”, Photilas said.
Public currently operates four stores in Greece and two in Cyprus. The company is owned by Panos Germanos, owner of Greek-based IT retail chain Multirama that also has stores in Bulgaria.
Another retail chain, Germanos, specialised in mobile phones sales and founded by Germanos, was sold for 1.5 billion euro in 2006 to Cosmote Mobile Telecommunications, the owner of one of Bulgaria's three wireless carriers, Globul.
($ = 0.6685 euro)