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Gelco
press release

Gelco Selects Visual Retailing Solutions to Underpin Rapid Growth.

Leading German fashion brand speeds merchandising of new and existing shops with Mockshop

Haarlem, Netherlands – 4 September 2008 – Gelco, one of the top ten fashion brands in Germany, has deployed Visual Retailing solutions to help it better manage the merchandising of its fast-growing number of shops. Using Mockshop, Gelco harmonises product presentation across all its points of sale and enables shop staff to merchandise them as quickly and attractively as possible. Gelco has also licensed Visual Retailing’s Photostudio and SampleRoom, which gives staff an at-a-glance overview of the whole product range. As Gelco delivers new themed collections every two weeks, Mockshop/SampleRoom enables merchandising staff to quickly and easily select coordinated outfits for display and communicate this information to shop staff. 

Despite the current turbulence in the apparel industry, Gelco has outshone competitors with its clear positioning. Its business model is centered on designing and marketing well-made and competitively-priced coordinated separates to the mature, fashion-conscious woman. From its beginnings 60 years ago as a maker of traditional women’s coats, Gelco has transitioned into a modern, attractive fashion brand with 3,800 retail customers as well as its own shops. Both in its domestic market and internationally, the number of its shop-in-shops and concessions has been increasing rapidly, and this growth is set to continue for the foreseeable future.

The company decided in spring 2008 to underpin this fast-paced growth by harmonising its visual identity across all its shops, while ensuring that the frequent updates to its ranges were reflected on the shop floor. With the Mockshop visualisation solution, staff can now simulate a variety of displays at the point of sale to ensure that they are as attractive as possible to the customer. With its retail areas of different shapes and sizes, Gelco can also use Mockshop to ensure that the space available is used as efficiently as possible. The integrated Photostudio enables Gelco to centralise and standardise photos of all its collections. The result is a complete image bank that is also suitable for use in other enterprise systems at Gelco, including ERP, retail (Futura) and product data management applications (Speedstep).

“We chose Visual Retailing products because we found they were easy to learn and have a logical and clear layout,” said Dirk Dreier, CEO GELCO GmbH & Co. KG. “The solutions can be used in multiple different ways while remaining cost-effective, so they delivered clear value to the business from the outset.”

Today, Mockshop is used to optimise displays and retail space in Gelco’s 262 outlets in Germany and 243 abroad. Along with support for its 3,800 retail customers worldwide, expanding the number of shop-in-shops and concessions is a priority in Gelco’s business plan. The Mockshop solution will play a central role in ensuring that this expansion is managed as effectively as possible and that Gelco’s visual identity is easily recognisable to the customer.

“With Mockshop, we now have a solution that covers practically 100 per cent of our merchandising needs,” added Dirk Dreier. “The various modules interact well with each other and Photostudio especially has saved us a huge amount of time. We were also impressed with Visual Retailing as a company – they’re real professionals. Everything went off smoothly, from placing the order through to installation, deployment and customer service.”

Visual Retailing
Tom van Soest
Tel: 0031-23 55 18 522
tom.vansoest@visualretailing.nl

Press Contact:
HBI PR&MarCom GmbH
Antonia Contato
Tel: 0049 89 9938 8742
Email: antonia_contato@hbi.de