Kersten Rosenau started his professional career as a lawyer and politician. At the end of the 1990s, he took over the 60-year old family business specialising in wholesale decorations.
“Over the years Kersten streamlined the company to specialise in Christmas decorations on all scales of retail businesses.“We at First Christmas supply a full range of services including the design, production and installation of outstanding decorations for shopping centres, streets and towns throughout the whole of Europe,” said Kersten Rosenau, Owner and Managing Director of First Christmas.
“Our market presence runs from Helsinki in the North to Rome in the South and from Lisbon in the West to Moscow in the East. First Christmas is also present with decorations in shopping centres on the Gulf coast.”
The company has its base in Hamburg, Germany, with all company members travelling extensively throughout Europe and the rest of the world, giving each and every one the experience of many different types of retail projects in many different markets - not necessarily just in the Christmas decorations segment, but also in areas of general design, animation, lighting and events.
“The exchange of experiences for First Christmas is immense and in particular gives the designers an international pool of ideas from which to draw upon,” he said. “This gives us a clear advantage over other companies where staff are confined to the experience of just one market.”
First Christmas’ strengths lie first and foremost in Rosenau; not only has he become one of Europe’s leading specialists on the Christmas decoration market, he is also an acknowledged authority when it comes to the retail industry in Europe.
First Christmas aims to not be just another supplier of Christmas decorations, but aims to create outstanding, made-to-measure decorations that truly transform each shopping centre into amazing Christmas wonderlands. Shopping centres rely on the months of November and December for the festive season, which in some retail sectors can actually be an amazing 80 per cent of annual turn over.
Kersten explains: “The incredible importance of November and December means that it is essential for shopping centres to draw the customers in to their centres as opposed to losing them to other retail areas or other shopping centres. It’s important to attract shoppers who are indeed ready and willing to purchase at this time of the year but who want the experience of shopping in an enchanting Christmas atmosphere.
“It is here that we at First Christmas can really make a difference by transforming a centre with our decorations to create a true emotional shopping experience for its customers.
“This year is likely to see shopping centres turning away from just ‘decorating’ their malls and moving towards the creation of spectacular Christmas theme worlds: not just uniformed schemes around one spectacular centre piece, but differently decorated areas within the centre based on one particular theme, thus creating a whole series of ‘wow’ effects.“
www.rosenau.com
For the full article, please see the June 2011 issue.
|
