Increasing proportion of garden products in Praktiker

We discussed the latest consumer trends with Szilvia Nagy, Praktiker Kft’s garden product purchaser. – Did the economic recession result in reduced demand for garden products? – The recession influenced the demand for garden products the least. Perhaps because people spend more time at home and do more gardening. – Are there characteristic trends in consumer habits? – There seems to be a return to electric devices from combustion-engine machines. Garden products realised a 1-percent increase in our total turnover and became our 4th most important segment.
– What kind of garden lovers does Praktiker build its strategy on? – Most of our buyers are from the middle class and they live in a house with a garden. Hungarian buyers are conservative and a bit reluctant to follow the latest trends. – Which products were successful? Were their any products that you decided to stop selling? – We did not stop selling any of our products, but we keep analysing sales data and if we judge that there will not be a demand for certain products in the future, we delete them from our stock.

As a result of a HUF 2 billion investment, the 20th Praktiker store opened its gates in Esztergom in April 2010. The 6,600 m² store was visited by more than 14,000 shoppers in the first five days – 65 percent of them came from Slovakia. The store uses geothermal energy and consumers can pay with Euro.