Steve is in the Cologne (Germany) area today for follow up meetings with 2 of Germany’s largest DIY retailers. OBI is the market leader with around 400 stores in Germany and Eastern Europe. Some stores are a franchise and many are corporate owned.
Toom is the DIY division of the REWE corporation (over 3000 stores). They have recently begun rolling out a new hardware area in their largest stores.
Steve is in the UK today helping a Council Member get the ball rolling with Screwfix (560 small format stores in the UK plus catalog and Internet. They are also part of the Kingfisher Group with B&Q and Castorama. When driving to their office in Yeovil, we passed right by Stonehenge.
Steve spent today helping a supplier find a new source for production in Poland. They also had time to visit the largest Leroy Merlin store in Europe.