Zaandam, The Netherlands, February 1, 2002 - Ahold, the food retail and foodservice company with approximately 9,000 supermarkets and hypermarkets and 2001 sales of Euro 66.6 billion, said today that its third worldwide promotion held last fall generated record sales. Results show the promotion, which lasted two weeks and was held at more than 8,000 Ahold stores in 25 countries, increased customer count in some cases up to 30%, and turnover of promotional items up to twenty times the regular sales volumes. A hypermarket in Ahold's Czech operation was awarded "Best Ahold Store" for the promotion as it increased sales by 15% and customer count by 10%. Nearly fifty of Ahold's global suppliers participated.
'Our expanding global scale allowed us to offer our customers the best possible deals during the promotion,' said Gerard van Breen, Senior Vice President Ahold Global Sourcing. 'We expected to exceed last year's success but were impressed to see that sales increased by 30% at hundreds of locations. Using our scale and size clearly paid off.'
The promotional theme, "Festival of Food and Fun," was translated into 14 languages and adapted where appropriate to local taste, store formats and culture. The global promotion was supplemented with a variety of products from local suppliers. Promotions were offered in all major categories, including dry groceries, soft drinks, detergents, diapers and general merchandise.
Exciting sweepstakes
Customers not only found products for a very attractive price, but many Ahold stores also offered sweepstakes and were decorated to highlight the event. Ahold associates, specially dressed, fully participated in the fun and excitement. Fashion shows, world record-setting for the Guinness Book of Records, children's parades and other activities made the promotion stand out from regular shopping. Other examples of activities included music concerts, vacation giveaways, "festival" trips to destinations like Mardi Gras and Walt Disney World, promotions for local schools, a Wheel of Food, Fun & Fortune with great prizes to win and more.
Volume and size
'We're excited about the excellent consumer offers highlighted during the promotion,' said Van Breen. 'The enthusiasm of suppliers, boosted by the tremendous results of the previous two promotions, was matched only by the in-store support of associates. The winning store - the Czech hypermarket of Teplice - thoroughly deserved its victory through a combination of innovative in-store marketing and round-the-clock commitment to ensuring that customers truly received a superior shopping proposition.'
The finalist stores - from Stop & Shop and Tops in the United States, Bompreço in Brazil, Santa Isabel in Peru, Tops in Malaysia, Supersol in Spain, Hypernova in Poland and Hypernova in the Czech Republic - were judged on materials submitted to the Ahold jury and on the basis of a presentation at Ahold corporate headquarters in The Netherlands. The jury, consisting of Ahold President & CEO Cees van der Hoeven, members of the Corporate Executive Board responsible for Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States, and members of the Ahold Global Sourcing team - decided that Hypernova Teplice in the Czech Republic had done the best job in combining customer activities with visual merchandising, thereby generating solid financial results.
The photos are available on request.
