Monday, September 20, 1999
Ahold, a leading food retailer, will hold its first global promotion this fall. The global price-off on selected items is scheduled to run simultaneously under the “WorldChampions” banner in most of Ahold’s 32 supermarket chains worldwide. Almost all of its 4,000 stores in Europe, the United States, Asia and Latin America have joined forces to leverage Ahold’s scale for the benefit of its 30 million weekly customers. Most joint venture partners are also participating.
For the worldwide promotion, the supermarket company has negotiated global master agreements with 15 major international suppliers. Also, over 100 local suppliers are participating. Both food and non-food items are included in the WorldChampions promotion that is scheduled for two weeks beginning the weekend of September 26. Along with the articles on promotion worldwide, participating stores in all countries are offering many discounts on local products, adding a strong local flavor to the campaign. Among the participating Ahold supermarket chains are the popular US store brands Stop & Shop in greater Boston, Massachusetts and Connecticut, Giant-Landover in metropolitan Washington DC and Baltimore, Giant and Edwards from Giant-Carlisle in New Jersey and metropolitan New York, Tops and Wilson Farms in Rochester and Buffalo and BI-LO in the Carolina’s.
In Latin America among others the popular Argentine supermarket chain Disco in and around Buenos Aires and Chilean Santa Isabel fully participate. In Europe among others Ahold’s Dutch flagship supermarket chain Albert Heijn participates, Mana supermarkets in Prague and elsewhere in the Czech Republic and Cobreros in southern Spain. In Asia among others the Tops supermarket chains in Thailand and Malaysia offer their customers the WorldChampionship items.
Ahold has annualized sales of approximately USD 35 billion and reported early September a 35.9% increase of First Half 1999 earnings to USD 378.0 million. The company operates 4,000 supermarkets, hypermarkets, neighborhood stores and specialty outlets in 17 countries and employs close to 300,000 people.
“Local customers benefit from our increasing scale every day”
The WorldChampions promotion is in line with the company’s pursuit of using its global scale for the benefit of the customer. “This is the first time ever that we are taking advantage of our scale in a worldwide promotion benefiting our local customers and attracting new ones. We’re in the process of rapidly developing coordinated buying among our operating companies and joint-venture partners. We use various ways and this promotion is an interesting example. We make use of our combined sales volume, local market know-how and first-hand information on local customer needs,” summarizes Gerard van Breen, Ahold’s Senior Vice President Global Sourcing. “By having our supermarket chains increasingly working together we reduce the costs of goods and create new commercial opportunities. The benefits from this are passed on to the customer making us highly competitive and contributing to the local success of our supermarkets. Our customers benefit from our increasing worldwide scale every day. We’re very excited to have the first WorldChampions promotion running this Fall.”