Super-Willys opens in Heron City

The low-price Willys chain continues to grow in the Greater Stockholm area and tomorrow, 25 August, sees the opening of Stockholm’s second Super-Willys store with a 5,000 m² retail area in Heron City, King’s Bend (Kungens Kurva).

The new store is the second Super-Willys in Stockholm; the first opened last year in Rissne. Super-Willys has a broader product offering including non-food items such as electronics, media, textiles and toys. Willys' business concept, Sweden's cheapest bag of groceries, has also been extended to the price profile of these new product categories. The trend in the retail food market is increasingly towards one-stop shopping. "Super-Willys" marks an effort to meet this demand in the discount segment. By providing access to attractively priced media, electronics, textiles, toys etc., Willys aims to create a practical and convenient discount store where shoppers can find just about any household item. The Willys chain is on course to open 15 Super-Willys by the year 2008. Comments Willys AB managing director Anders Strålman: ”Super-Willys marks the start of the natural expansion of a proven and successful store concept, and the conditions for establishing a store in Heron City, King’s Bend (Kungens Kurva) are extremely promising. The area is considered a future regional centre and from a traffic perspective the store enjoys a prime location.” Willys is today Sweden’s largest discount food chain, with a wide range of products and a special focus on fresh products such as fruits and vegetables, meats, and dairy products. The stores have an offering of some 7,500 items, covering 95% of consumers’ annual food purchases. Willys’ grocery prices are among the lowest in Sweden. The main factor behind the low prices is that the stores are run highly efficiently with low overhead. This efficiency is achieved, among other things, through purchases of large volumes by a central purchasing organization. Willys’ goal is to increase the number of stores in Stockholm. Today Willys has 17 stores in the Greater Stockholm area, and the chain has 98 stores in all. The goal is to have 120 wholly owned stores by 2008. Axfood also has 45 Willys hemma stores, which is a chain of small discount stores. For further information, please contact: Anders Strålman, President, Willys AB, tel +46-708-37 88 37 Mats Tägtström, store manager, Willys Heron City, +46-706-55 29 58 Bodil Hornbäk, Public Relations, Willys AB, tel +46-702-99 50 29 Additional information: www.axfood.se and www.willys.se