At the end of a year that started with the toughest quarter for DIY retailers on slumping sales, store networks will book investments of around 200m euros in 14 new stores, 35m euros more than in 2009.
Operators brought around 400m euros in new expansion projects during the crisis, considering where they annually raise 2bn euros from the market from population’s consumption.
Just one of the eight DIY store networks in Romania has so far reached satisfactory market coverage, Praktiker, while the crisis caught the others with large expansion plans on paper.
On a market of 22 million consumers, retailers spent almost 400m euros on expansion during the crisis, but were forced to survive only on the basis of small projects.
Despite retailers’ expectations of a market decline by around 15% in 2010 against 2009, completed expansion investments are rising.
Players say they are getting ready for the coming years’ consumption increases.
Six out of eight retailers are set to open stores in 2010. Ambient and Hornbach are the only retailers that are not expanding this year.

Subiecte #DIY field#operators