If the new HEMA CEO wants to achieve something, it is that customers will put their scissors and vases neatly in a cardboard box when they move house, in order to give them a place in their new home. And that they don’t throw away a product after one or two years and buy something new. “We don’t believe in people who just buy something,” says Saskia Egas Reparaz. “We want people to buy something here because they like it.”
We don’t believe in people who just buy something
Saskia Egas ReparazI top woman HEMA
In the new strategy, which she presented on Tuesday, the retail chain emphatically distances itself from the “throw-away society” that has emerged in recent decades. HEMA wants to reduce its own emissions and help customers to do the same, according to Egas Reparaz. Over the next three days, she will tour the company to unfold her plans to employees, franchisees and suppliers.
Also read the profile that NRC wrote about Egas Reparaz: New HEMA director makes the switch from ‘bricks to clicks’
In short, the CEO wants products to last longer, because that is sustainable and therefore better for the climate. This is only possible if HEMA (1.1 billion euros in turnover, 19,000 employees) focuses even more on quality and ‘typically Dutch design’. At the same time, products must remain affordable. She repeatedly mentions the scissors as an example, which she believes should last at least fourteen years.
It doesn’t sound like a big change of course, admits Egas Reparaz. “I think people will hear a recognizable story.” Affordable design of good quality – it was also the spearhead of the department store chain in the 1990s. “The core of our story is that we are going to focus on the core of HEMA”, she summarizes the strategy. “HEMA is going to do what it was always good at again, in a way that suits the current zeitgeist.”
refurbishment
The core of the new course is also that HEMA will no longer do a lot of things. The company got new owners at the end of last year – the supermarket family Van Eerd (Jumbo) and investor Parcom – who wanted an end to the “Anglo-Saxon conditions” at the company. For thirteen years there was hardly any money at HEMA because the company was covered with debt by private equity fund Lion Capital. That burden has now been largely eliminated, as a result of which HEMA’s interest expenses have fallen by tens of millions.
Under Lion, and also billionaire Marcel Boekhoorn, much at HEMA revolved around international expansion. The company had to “take part in the Champions League of retail” and therefore opened stores far outside Europe. The new owners and the top woman who came over from drugstore chain Etos in June will reverse that, it was announced in recent weeks. HEMA now wants to focus all its attention on a handful of countries: the Benelux and France.
Also read: HEMA has been a dream for the Jumbo family for years, but not an option
While lately it has mainly been about everything that HEMA would stop doing, Egas Reparaz wants to talk this Tuesday mainly about the changes in which the company does want to invest its money and energy. For example, this involves closer cooperation with Jumbo. HEMA products are already on the shelves there. Conversely, the department store chain is going to do a trial with the sale of Jumbo products, as a supplement to the familiar tompouce and smoked sausage.
In addition, HEMA is going to redesign its stores. In three years’ time, 80 percent of customers should be in renovated branches. The current store formula is five years old, says Egas Reparaz, and then it is high time for renewal, because the retail landscape has also changed considerably during that time. Many franchisees have already given their store a makeover and that attracts extra customers. “We have not done that enough in our own stores in recent years.”
What applies to the stores, in a sense also applies to the website. According to the new board, the two should be better aligned. The stock in the store can now be found on the web, but not very well yet. And HEMA does pay attention to improving products, but this is often not reflected in photos and descriptions. In addition, the retail chain is expanding its distribution center so that products ordered online arrive at home on time.
In terms of materials and ingredients – down, palm oil, cotton, cocoa – we work according to quality marks
Saskia Egas ReparazI top woman HEMA
Measurable Goals
But Egas Reparaz places the most emphasis in its explanation of quality and sustainability. That was already important, she says: “In terms of materials and ingredients – down, palm oil, cotton, cocoa – we work according to quality marks.” HEMA also announced the goal of using a quarter less plastic by 2025, and then only using bio- or recycled plastic.
At the same time, there is always room for improvement, and not everything has been laid down in detail yet, she continues. Egas Reparaz would like to collaborate with an external authority that screens HEMA for sustainable goals, such as reduction of CO2emissions. „You don’t want ‘we from Toilet Duck’ to say anything. You want to make that transparent and measurable. We want to work that out in concrete terms in the coming months.”
The most sustainable is of course simply to make less, the top woman also knows. However, in many retail chains that does not go well with the main raison d’être: selling. And if a baby bodysuit lasts longer because it has a second row of buttons that makes it adjustable, the customer is less likely to spend money on a new one.
Egas Reparaz doesn’t see that as a problem, she says. „If you have our scissors, and you believe in it, then I think you will also come and buy your towels from us. And your tea towels. We must ensure that customers buy more widely. Half of Dutch babies wear a HEMA romper. But only one in five women wears a HEMA bra. Just like with the rompers, that can also be half.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of October 27, 2021
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