Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The Albert and Hypernova supermarket chains have announced significant steps aimed at allowing the chain to become the leader of the Czech retail market. Most visibly, the Hypernova hypermarkets will be re-branded to Albert.
Albert supermarkets and Hypernova hypermarkets in the country have just introduced its new strategy for further growth in the Czech Republic. A single brand, Albert, will be responsible for the business in the Czech Republic in future. “We want to build a strong brand in the Czech market that will be offering quality and tested products to our customers,” the Albert/Hypernova President and CEO, Johan Boeijenga, commented.
In the second half of the next year, Hypernova hypermarkets will be re-branded to Albert. “First and foremost we are a food retailer, which is the reason we will keep the Albert brand that our customers associate with comfortable shopping for food,“ Boeijenga explains why Ahold have opted for the Albert brand and not Hypernova.
In future, the formats of the re-branded stores will change. The customers will be able to choose between three differently-sized Albert formats. “The size and sales area of individual Albert stores will depend on the character of the location and the type of shopping these stores will offer,“ Boeijenga adds.
Small Albert stores, with shopping areas from 200 to 500 square metres, will be designed for immediate consumption. The “shopping for tomorrow” will be catered for by regular Albert stores, with shopping areas 500 to 1,800 square metres.
The current Hypernova hypermarkets will be renamed to Albert Hyper and will offer shopping areas of 1,800 to 5,000 square metres. These latter stores will offer, besides food, also seasonal products and selected non-food. The re-branding will be done gradually and on individual basis after consultations with the owner of the building in which the store is located.