Interview with the management of TM Bembi

Director of Development Bembi Valentin Rubaha on working with Ukrainian and foreign partners, biased attitude to domestic products and trends in the field of children's clothing.

  Company Bembi is the leading Ukrainian producer of children's clothes with almost 20-year history of development, a constant participant of Baby Expo. This is the only Ukrainian producer of children's clothing, which has its own brand-name chain of branded stores, as well as representative offices abroad. Valentyn Rubakha, Development Director of Bembi, spoke about the company's first steps abroad, problems with quality retail space in Ukraine and work in the market, when you are both a manufacturer, retailer and wholesaler.

- Tell us the history of the company, how it all began? The
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- The company Bembi exists since 1998, and the trade mark was registered in 2005. The first store as an experiment was opened in 2008. However, Bembi works not only in retail. Historically, it is a company that operates on two sales channels: both in wholesale and retail. We have a formed distribution in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Moldova. These are our main outposts. Also we sell to Germany, France and other countries.
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Searching for partners

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- How many stores do you have in Ukraine now? In what cities? The
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- Now 34. It was 35, but in Chernigov in the Hollywood shopping center the store was closed. We are represented in almost all regional centers of Ukraine, except for Poltava, Zaporozhye, Nikolaev and Uzhgorod. The problem is that in these cities there are quite a few high-quality retail areas. To get somewhere we are not ready, and where we would like, the vacancy is zero.
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We develop both our own shops and our partner's. We have 12 of our stores in Kiev, Kharkov, Khmelnitsky, Odessa and the Dnieper. In other cities - partner.
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- Under what conditions do you cooperate with partners? The
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- We have a franchise agreement, a lump-sum fee, there is no royalty. There are conditions for observing the corporate style and assortment ratio. That is, the store can not have a product of other brands that intersects with ours. There may be an additional assortment - one that we do not produce, or it is necessary for this store. If we understand that partners are interested, then we allow sales in the format 75 /25.
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- Have there been cases when, for some reason, they ceased cooperation with partners, broke the contract? The
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- In our history there were two such cases. The first - in the city of Uzhgorod, five or six years ago. It was one of the first stores when we just started to develop retail trade. The vision of the partners of the development path of the store was diametrically opposed to ours. Accordingly, neither we nor they saw the sense to continue cooperation.
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The second case was recently in the SEC Caravan in the Dnieper. Partners for personal reasons quit the business, and we took this project to ourselves.
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- When did you enter the foreign market? The
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- The first deliveries abroad Bembi began to do since 2005. Stable partners appeared in 2008-09: in Belarus and in Russia. Four years ago they decided to enter the European market. So we have a representative office in Poland. The Warsaw office is seen as an outpost for the development of the European market. We ship products to Belgium, France, Germany, the Baltic countries from there.
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- Work with partners in Ukraine and abroad is different? The
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- It's difficult to work with the European market, because the dynamics of the Ukrainian market is more rapid.

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It is such a specificity in the post-Soviet space: we are doing business quickly, and we expect fast results. Today at the exhibition we saw interesting products - two days later we are ordering it.

In Europe, this is more difficult. They are slower, more moderate. For Europeans, the phone call is the norm: "Remember last year I saw you at the exhibition."
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In addition, the European market is already filled and structured. It is difficult to "gnaw out a piece of it." If in Ukraine Bembi - one of the most famous and large-scale producers, then for Europe - just one of. That is, authority must be earned. And the most important competitive advantage there is the experience of staying on the European market.

  - Do you work only in the TRC format or in street-retail? The
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- We have stores in both street-retail and shopping centers. The bulk in the mall.
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Street format is used in those places where there is no quality retail space.
The same Kropivnitsky, where there are no shopping centers that meet our requirements, or Lviv, where such a development strategy was chosen together with the partner and it is effective. But the most successful stores are in the SEC.