Sancta Domenica is the largest Croatian retailer of consumer electronics.
After HG Spot, Vemil and E Plus, the title of the largest consumer electronics company in Croatia was taken last year by Sancta Domenica from Sveta Nedjelja, with revenues of 603.5 million kuna. That is the record revenue in the history of consumer electronics retailers in Croatia, reports Poslovni.hr on August 24, 2016.
Sancta Domenica is also the fastest growing and the most profitable player in the industry. It has increased its turnover by 76.3 per cent and had net profits of 15.1 million kuna.
Vesna Ramljak, the owner and director of Sancta Domenica, did not repeat the mistakes of former managers of HG Spot and Vemil. She turned towards consolidation of its own retail network and the introduction of employee remuneration model similar to the DM retail chain.
Goran Janičijević, the head of retail at Sancta Domenica, said that they were helped by the overall economy and by taking a different approach to customers. “Last year, the whole industry felt an increase in the purchasing power of citizens, which was the first recovery since the beginning of economic crisis. However, the foundations for Sancta Domenica’s growth are consolidation of retail network and our employees. That is how we managed to beat the competition”, said Janičijević.
Sancta Domenica pays its employees twice as much as their main competitors. Janičijević says it is a part of their business policy, because a company is represented by people who work in retail shops. “It is not enough just to have a good location and attractive products, but you also need motivated and satisfied employees who are always ready to help the customer and provide good advice”, said Janičijević.
This year, Sancta Domenica has reached the figure of 80 employees, and the plan is to employ even more workers. In the last two years, the company has increased the number of employees by a third. “We have concentrated on three major cities, Zagreb, Rijeka and Split, where we have 13 retail stores”, explained Janičijević. He added that for now they did not plan to expand to other Croatian cities. However, in 2017, they will expand to the markets of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Austria. He added that for the time being they will not go into acquisitions of other companies.
Among other major consumer electronics retailers in Croatia, Vemil does not exist anymore. It went bankrupt due to debts to suppliers. Former HG Spot does not exist as such, but its new iteration, owned by one of the original founders, was the second fastest growing retailer last year. Sancta Domenica is closely followed by E Plus from Donji Stupnik, which last year had revenues of 584.6 million kuna and net profits of 5.9 million kuna.
