April the 13th, 2023 - The Croatian Orbico Group is aiming high for this year with its logistics and distribution centre, after rounding off 2022 with a fantastic turnover and earnings.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jolanda Rak Sajn writes, the Croatian Orbico group ended last year with an extremely impressive turnover of 3.2 billion euros, with EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation) of around 72 million euros in total.

The achieved growth stood at about 15%, and it was similar right here in Croatia, where Orbico achieved a record 520 million euros in turnover. In an interview with Vecernji list, Branko Roglic, the owner of the group which is currently the largest European distributor of consumer goods, announced that the construction of their LDC (logistics and distribution centre) in Zdencina will begin at the end of this month.

"The total cost of the construction should be around 55 million euros, while the necessary equipment and automation systems that are planned imply an additional 15 million euros of investment. As far as moving in is concerned, we're tentatively talking about the period from the 2nd to the 4th quarter of 2024. With an additional 42,000 m2 in the first phase in Zdencina, the total storage capacity of Orbico in Croatia and Slovenia will rise to 114,000 m2. We do business with more than 100 suppliers, and more than 340,000 pallets of various goods pass through our centres based in Croatia annually."

Roglic also stated that the Croatian Orbico group is working on a permit for the construction of a marina in Omis in Central Dalmatia, but that project is still in the early stages and it is necessary to obtain a permit first.

"Investments outside of the Republic of Croatia alldepend on the end of the war in Ukraine. I hope that will occur soon and that peace will return to Ukraine and its citizens. We do business in 20 countries, but due to the war in Ukraine, we froze our work in the Russian Federation, shut down our operations in Belarus, while we're continuing to work in Ukraine with a slight drop in traffic," said Roglic, revealing the Croatian Orbico group's current five-year plans.

"We're counting on great development. By the year 2030, if everything goes well, we will have a turnover of 6.2 billion euros, which would mean that we will double it in the next seven years,'' Roglic concluded.

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November the 15th, 2021 - Online shopping has always been the favourite way of getting things done from the comfort of your own home in other parts of Europe, but until recently, more precisely until the coronavirus pandemic erupted, it lagged here in Croatia. Things have now dramatically changed and numerous big players are entering the Croatian e-commerce world.

As Novac/Jutarnji/Bernard Ivezic writes, the growth of Croatian e-commerce is fast heading towards numbers around the one billion euro mark next year, and as the hasty entry of large foreign players has flooded the Croatian online shopping market, an equally significant number of interesting shifts in the domestic market have taken place.

The Orbico Group, the largest domestic distributor and the second largest company in all of Croatia after Fortenova (formerly Agrokor) has entered the world of Croatian e-commerce. Orbico's web perfumery FABUspot, launched only this year, has already reached third place according to user ratings at the Web Retailer Award 2021, the largest e-commerce competition in the entire Adriatic region, which was organised by Ceneje.si on Friday in the Slovenian capital city of Ljubljana.

Data on the operations of FABUspot are encouraging, and the Croatian Orbico Group has doubled its revenue in the last five years alone. Last year, it reached an impressive 18.2 billion kuna, which put Orbico ahead of the INA Group, making it, as mentioned, the second largest domestic company after the gigantic Fortenova.

Another big surprise was prepared by Ivica Todoric's former flagship and the enterprise that was supposed to save the entire company, the Abracadabra web store, ie A007 Plus.

Abracadabra was declared by Fina as having the highest revenue growth of all major online retailers in Croatia, of 124.3 percent, a figure of 21.6 million kuna. For comparison, the fastest growing retailer in recent years was otherwise the popular Bazzar.hr, ie the company Prati me (Follow me). But in the pandemic-dominated year, it grew by 100.7 percent. Despite this welcome title, Abracadabra isn't actually operating positively. Last year, it increased its losses to 9 million kuna, and last year, Bazzar.hr increased its net profit by ten times to 522,105 kuna with revenues of 50.6 million kuna.

The third big surprise for the rapidly growing world of Croatian e-commerce is the new record set by eKupi (eBuy), the largest domestic online store of all. Back in 2020, the company within the M SAN Group increased its revenue by 25.9 percent, to 50 million kuna, or 374.3 million kuna. In addition, it generated a net profit of 4.5 million kuna.

The company eKupi, according to the assessment of the Polish Allegro, which entered the Croatian market with the acquisition of the Mall Group (of which Mall.hr is a part), is the largest domestic player on our market. Allegro estimated it to hold 11 percent of the market. The largest online retailer in Croatia is the Chinese Alibaba Group. The owner of AliExpress holds as much as 24 percent of the share in the Croatian market.

The great interest of foreign players for the Croatian market, especially those from Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Germany, can be seen from the selection of the Web Retailer Award 2021. Many of them are already present in Croatia, however, this choice also shows that smaller Croatian players are working on the development of their own respective web stores and are achieving continuously better results.

The company Smart Trade from Sesvete near Zagreb, whose web store Namjestaj.hr (Furniture.hr) was rated the best in the entire industry, last year increased its revenue by 9.7 percent, to 147.5 million kuna, with a doubling of its net profits to 4.6 million kuna. The company DDL Zagreb, whose pet store PetHomeShop.hr was rated the best in its industry, last year recorded revenue growth of 15.8 percent, to 54.9 million kuna.

For more, check out our dedicated business section.