Gino Rossi starts export drive

By Kamil Tchorek

The Polish-Italian shoe company Gino Rossi will open its first German store in less than three weeks. The opening marks the inauguration of an ambitious European export strategy that will double the firm's 56 retail outlets within three years. At the end of this period, the company could expand further into Canada and the USA, raising capital from an Initial Public Offering on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

The German store will be on the prime Berlin shopping street of Kudamstrasse. Depending on the success of this pilot store, Gino Rossi anticipates rapid expansion into Germany, simultaneously with Scandinavia and the Czech Republic, where fifteen franchise contracts have already been signed.

Gino Rossi was founded in 1992 by four Poles and two Italians including Gino Rossi himself. Over the last eleven years, recession-busting sales have brought production to 500 percent of start figures.

"Our sales success is based on offering a unique product," says Wojciech Fedorowicz, the Business Development manager and son of founder member Maciej Fedorowicz. "In 1996 we started to create 'monobrand' shops which proved a massive success. We shifted our business away from competition with other brands in retail outlets, and away from supply to wholesalers. Once we had our own outlets, production did not have to significantly slow down during the sluggish economy of recent years."

Gino Rossi employs three-hundred people, mainly at its production base outside Słupsk. At present, the Słupsk plant that produces all of the firm's shoes only operates on one shift. The anticipated doubling of demand from the doubling of outlets can be accommodated by the employment of a new, night-shift workforce and by expansion into local workshops.

During Gino Rossi's expansion, Fedorowicz points to a number of key learning experiences for the company. "Our first store in Marszałkowska was in a good part of the city but we had it on the first floor, away from the street," says Fedorowicz. "That did not work. But now we have got the outlet formula right. In fact we've got it so right that the market is almost saturated and we are looking to grow from expansion abroad."

Gino Rossi's expansion plan, currently focused on Germany, Scandinavia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, relies on the premise that they have a unique product. Strangely enough, Fedorowicz is adamant that the shape of feet varies from country to country, and sales success is also thanks to realizing this. "It's difficult selling Italian shoes to Germans and Scandinavians. Italian people have differently shaped feet, so if Italians don't change their product for export they run into difficulties. Though Italian shoes are considered to be beautiful and of good quality, they are not comfortable enough for North Europeans. But we have taken the Italian look and Italian quality and brought it to Poland for North European feet."

For these reasons, Gino Rossi rules out competing in Mediterranean countries, where competition in the leather goods market is considered too fierce. For now, their strategy is to work on the 'Italian' brand, which has succeeded so well in Poland, and to take it to other consumers with an awe for all things Italian.