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DSGi has declared its merger of PC World and Currys a success – and now plans to open more outlets under the new model in the future.
The company launched a trial store that incorporated products from both retailers’ portfolios in Surrey in January. Now the PC World and Currys’ parent is showing its satisfaction with the results. The firm said that the move compared favourably to previous store rebranding.
The most exciting thing about the various store reformats is that all of them – such as Currys.digital, Megastores and the two-in-one store – are performing well and we have announced an accelerated roll-out of all the formats to include around five more two-in-one stores this year,” said head of media relations Mark Webb.
The trial store has performed exceptionally well, reporting a 65 per cent average gross profit uplift in the 22 weeks ending April 18th, 2009, and plenty of other metrics give us great confidence for the future.
Customers have responded extremely well to the new format, the enhanced service and the wider ranges we are stocking. By offering both the Currys and PC World brand – which generally appeal to different customer groups – we have widened the appeal.”
In addition to yielding success, the merger trial taught DSGi several lessons, and the company has taken every piece of feedback on board in order to ensure the continued success of the new stores.
Despite the impressive uplifts we are seeing, we have identified a number of areas that we can further tweak in this store and in further trials,” said Webb.
It is also clear that the enhanced service as the reformatting itself.
We certainly see the potential for larger store trials given the excitement we have seen from our customers.”
