“We need to be bolder”

The new MD of purchasing and category management at German cooperative Hagebau has taken a critical look at price trends and the cooperative’s relationship with the industry over the past two years. "I am convinced that we can and will rightly demand price reductions in many places," said Frank Staffeld in an interview with German trade journal diy-Fachmagazin. He pointed out that many manufacturers had shown “significant surges in earnings in some cases”. For the category management and purchasing aspects, the Hagebau managing director explicitly criticised a "rather poorer availability of goods" for Hagebau compared to competitors. At the same time, Staffeld adopted a self-critical tone when questioning how open retailers were to innovation, saying: “We need to be bolder.”

In procurement, Staffeld wants to expand imports from the Far East. One reason for this is that there are no comparable alternatives from Europe for many products. "In many categories, production in Asia is done on the latest machines. This means that the best quality is achieved in many cases," said Staffeld. With regard to own brands – which currently account for a share of nearly 30 per cent at Hagebau – the purchasing director expects more innovations and greater topicality "also on the brand side, if we are pushing own brands ourselves. That's good for us and for the brand manufacturers."

Hagebau is the fourth-largest German DIY group and one of the largest groups in the building materials trade. In purchasing, it cooperates via the purchasing company Arena. In addition to Hagebau, six other members belong to this purchasing cooperative, which was founded in 2000: Groupement Les Mousquetaires in France, Coop in Switzerland with its DIY division Jumbo, Gruppo Bricofer in Italy, Dedeman in Romania, Pevex in Croatia and Maxeda DIY Group in the Benelux countries