Ernsting’s family is back in the Netherlands after 13 years. The German fashion chain opened its first store in Wageningen last week. RetailTrends visited the chain that is fully committed to expanding its store base in the Netherlands: “We are not a discounter, we only have the price of a discounter.”
Between 1992 and 2011, Ernsting’s family was also active in our country, especially close to the border. “It was before my time, but I think they were less aggressive then than they are now,” says Linda de Jong, head of sales Netherlands. “There was no Dutch guidance.”
According to De Jong, Ernsting’s family had little experience with doing business across the border at the time. The company has now made much more progress in internationalisation. In addition to the 1806 stores in Germany, it also has 119 branches in Austria.
‘Things will be better now than then’
“In Austria, where we started in 2010, we learned a lot,” explains spokesman Marcello Concilio. “At that time, our organization was not ready for it. Now it is. The last 1.5…
