French Leroy Merlin working its way onto DIY market

Philippe Hauville, the Frenchman coordinating the project for the launch of Leroy Merlin store network domestically, says Romania is the most competitive new country for the company and that he relies on direct contact with potential clients to set the tackling strategy for 2011.

The French retailer, ranking second on the European market, after UK’s Kingfisher and ahead of Praktiker, has already recruited around 30 people in Romania and opened its offices several hundred metres away from Colosseum retail park of Bucharest, where it will open a store in the first half of 2011.
Leroy Merlin is the seventh international DIY network entering the Romanian market in eight years.
Leroy Merlin head reckons there will be tight competition on the market. “This is the first time we’re entering a market with such high competition, so that the approach will be different from the rest of the countries (…),” states Philippe Hauville, general manager of Leroy Merlin Romania.
The French apply domestically the same research strategy they have tried in the rest of the countries they entered: direct contact with potential clients.