It started in a small grocery store in Essen, Germany
It’s officially been 20 years since we opened the doors to our first Australian stores at Bankstown Airport and Marrickville. To celebrate, we wanted to take a look at where our story began and just how far we’ve come.
Our story began in 1913 when Karl Albrecht and his wife Anna Siepmann opened a small grocery store in Essen, Germany. Although times were hard, the Albrechts were able to stay ahead of their competition. They were successful because they:
- Owned the store premises and didn’t have to pay rent
- Were highly respected in the community
- Offered a credit facility which customers loved
- Had a liquor licence when chain stores were not allowed to sell alcohol
In 1945, the Albrecht sons Theo and Karl took over and began to grow the business. In 1948 they expanded into four stores.
The thrifty brothers deliberately kept prices low by only stocking non-perishable items and removing slow-sellers. They also refused to pay for advertising, so the popularity of Albrecht was spread by word of mouth with nearly all of the profits being reinvested back into the business. By 1950, they owned 13 stores in Essen and 10 years later had more than 300 stores in Germany’s Ruhr Valley and surrounding areas.
During the second half of the 1950’s Albrecht was facing intense pressure from competitors, so the Albrechts tried to increase the range of products they sold. However, this turned out to be the wrong move so they went back to the strategy which had delivered them such success: a strictly limited range of high quality products at low prices.
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