A new online furniture and accessories shop was launched by a former Agrokor marketing director.
Many of Europe's top designer brands for interior decoration have long been present in Croatia. However, due to their high prices, they are seen as being somewhat elitist and inaccessible for a wider range of customers. Such a situation has prompted Agrokor’s former marketing director Mladen Horvat to launch Gnijezdo – a showroom and an online shop for designer furniture at affordable prices, reports Poslovni.hr on March 4, 2017.
"Although I have been involved in marketing for many years, working on some of the most famous Croatian brands like Jana, Jamnica, PIK Vrbovec and Čarli, in the last few year I started thinking more and more about starting my own businesses. Since I have been monitoring interior decoration market for some time and it was a kind of a hobby for me, I decided to combine business with pleasure”, said Horvat.
He browsed the internet for a while, comparing offers of brands on international websites and he soon realized that there was room in Croatia for quality European brands which have achieved great success, but were still virtually unknown in Croatia. Gnijezdo brings to Croatia some of the best and most successful Dutch brands in this segment, including HK Living, Storebror, Be Pure Home, Woood, Zuiver, and Dutchbone. Since in the Netherlands nearly half of the volume of trade in items for interior decoration is done via the internet, the logical next step was to open an online store.
“In doing so, I wanted Gnijezdo.hr to be functional, transparent and aesthetically attractive website and to provide customers with a shopping experience as if they were in a physical store. Customers at Gnijezdo.hr can now find more than 2,000 products, with about 10,000 photos with prices, descriptions and dimensions”, said Horvat, who has also opened a showroom at the Malešnica neighbourhood in Zagreb, where buyers and designers can test the products first hand, and also get any advice they might need.
He said that the initial reaction of the market was excellent, especially the praise he has received for the look, functionality and transparency of his online shop, which was developed in cooperation with Marker company from Varaždin.
“After years of domination of Scandinavian and Italian brands, Dutch brands of interior decoration products have in recent years became an absolute hit and they achieve excellent sales results. We started with these brands, but we will follow the developments on the markets and strive to offer the best products to the Croatian customers. Of course, there are further plans, but given the fact that we have been in the market for less than a month, it is too early to talk about them”, concluded Horvat.
