European clothes producers attack Poland

New clothes companies come to Poland from Greece, Italy and the East. They’ll face fierce competition of the national clothes producers.

New clothes shops have appeared in Poland recently including Italian Vento Milano, Greek Esthis and Eastern European Sela.

The first company is being introduced by Kubex. There is one shop operating, seven others will be launched this year.

“We will have 50 outlets till the end of next year, including our own ones, franchises and stands”, Wioletta Kogut, Kubex CEO said.

Vento Milano offers clothes for women aged 20-70 years. They are designed in Italy and sawn in Turkey.

Esthis is developing its own outlets. Today it has two of them, further nine will appear this year.

“We want to have 20 shops till the end of 2007”, Cezary Poltorak responsible for Esthis retail network in Poland said. The clothes are mainly produced in Bulgaria. They are directed to women aged 27-45 years. The company believes that its main rivals in Poland include Solar or Simple. The distance is very big, however. Solar has 60 shops while Simple has 20.

In July, Sela, the distributor of clothes for teenagers appeared in Poland. Sela’s capital comes from several Eastern European countries including Ukraine, Russia, Kazachstan, Latvia and Lithuania. It has one shop and plans to have five of them this year.

“We want to saturate the Polish market with 100 shops. Ten of them will be our own shops, the rest will operate with our license”, Ernest Wozniak from Sela said.

The clothes are produced in Hong Kong.

“Our shops will compete with Polish Reserved. We have the same target group”, Ernest Wozniak believed.

However, Reserved is a well-known brand. The company has 91 shops in Poland.

Rivals do not fear the new competitors.

“The Polish market is not as competitive as Western European ones. But it will be difficult for a new brand to build a big distribution network which would provide the scale effect. The majority of foreign brands are already present in Poland. Some of them, including Zara or Orsay, have been successful, others failed to fit the Polish market”, Grzegorz Koterwa, Artman member of the board commented.
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