Having opened its first store nearly 15 years ago, Portugal-based fashion accessory specialist Parfois has excelled in serving early adopters and followers of fashion with a sophisticated and well-designed range.

The company currently operates 170 stores in 19 markets – including France, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt, Angola and Mozambique – and in four of these markets, France, Spain, Portugal and Poland, Parfois has made strong, direct investment. In all other markets, the retailer has expanded through a strong network of franchise partners.
Most recently, the company opened a new store in Paris, with further 2009 openings scheduled in Zagreb, Barcelona and Madrid.

“Longer term, our plan is to become the best accessories brand, wherever we are operating,” explains International Business Development Manager Filipe Correia. “We are looking at opening a minimum of 30 new stores per year. Most of the openings will be in markets where we already have stores, in order to increase our presence, but also through expansion in new markets.”

Correia and his team are also at a very advanced stage in a number of overseas territories, with a view to commence, during H1 of 2010 and they are also in negotiations to start in four more countries.

“When we start in a new country we are always looking at prime locations as a priority,” says Correia, “the key factors being the amount of traffic, visibility and fashion retail environment. Of course all the ‘hard issues’ are also very important, such as accessibility; competition environment; demographics, including population growth, and the costs involved, namely premises rent and salaries.”

In Madrid, for example, Parfois has two flagship stores on main streets – Fuencarral and Goya high streets. It is in the top shopping centres and has recently completed an agreement to open on perhaps the most prestigious shopping street, Preciados, by the end of 2009.

These very recent investments are bringing extensive returns in terms of sales, image and brand awareness for other stores in the Spanish market, due to a much higher brand visibility.

“Our ideal location will always to be in high traffic locations, whether in malls or streets and within a fashionable retail environment,” explains Correia. “This is true for any kind of retail but when you’re selling accessories it is even more so, because customers do not look specifically for it, but they pass by and are tempted. The more traffic, the bigger are the chances to be successfully accepted by customers.”

The company continually adds new product lines to its offer, a very natural response to its permanent concern over customer demand. “A good example is that in the last 12 months there has been a great demand on scarves. We have used all of our resources to provide the best and biggest possible offer on this,” he continues. “At the moment, sales show an increase of demand for hair accessories; our designers and buyers do pay attention to short-term trends and we’re updating our displays to accommodate a greater offer in the stores.”

Of course in a competitive environment, brand loyalty is becoming even more difficult to achieve and clients are more demanding these days: “You must be able to offer the right product in terms of design, material and price at every moment. You just can’t miss it!” says Correia.

In a tough trading environment, Parfois has enjoyed very positive results with like-for-like sales growing. From 2006-2009, total growing is almost reaching 60 per cent. Presumably, a strong store design concept is all the more important?

“In our case it really has been of paramount importance,” he says.

“Our design teams, based in Porto and Barcelona, are responsible for our accessories style and we believe they enable us to offer the best fashion for money. We have totally revitalised our store concept over the past 18 months and the results are excellent in terms of both image and sales growth, given these difficult times for retail.

For the full article please see the RLI November 09 issue