Online supermarket Rohlík.cz will open a new distribution centre in Ostrava in October, which should help the company increase the number of orders in the Czech Republic by tens of percent by the end of this year. Rohlík expects the Ostrava warehouse to bring not only new customers, but also more efficient delivery and a wider range of local products, the company announced. Rohlík also has a distribution centre in Brno and three in Prague.
“With the new warehouse, we will be able to effectively cover a wide area in northern Moravia, including more remote locations. We will also improve the availability of delivery windows during the day for our customers, offering 15-minute delivery windows as well as express deliveries in 60 minutes. We will reduce the standard delivery time to three hours,” said Rohlik’s director Martin Beháň.
The new 9,000 sqm distribution centre will be located in the CTPark Ostrava Poruba area. Rohlík will spend more than CZK 90 million on its operation and equipment. By the end of the year, the centre should handle approximately 5,000 orders per day.
“The warehouse will be equipped with basic automated conveyors for horizontal and vertical transport with the possibility of further automation in the future,” the company further said. Rohlik opened its first automated distribution centre in the Czech Republic last year in Chrášt’any near Prague. Rohlik Group, which Rohlik Czech Republic is part of, has invested more than EUR 50 million (about CZK 1.2 billion) in automation, owner Tomáš Čupr said earlier.
Last year, Rohlik began new deliveries to more than 2,500 towns and villages, according to Behan. “During the current year, we are continuing this and almost 4,000 new locations have already become part of the delivery network. Currently, we have expanded our coverage by 230 locations in just the last month,” Behan said. Rohlik’s current strategy, including a new distribution centre in Ostrava, will lead to the service being available to 75 percent of the Czech population, he said.
According to its annual report in the Collection of Deeds, Rohlik Group posted a loss of CZK 212 million in the financial year ending April 30, 2022. The company’s turnover in the same period was CZK 12 billion. In addition to the Czech Republic, Rohlik Group also operates in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Romania, Spain and Italy.
Rohlik’s biggest competitor in the Czech market is online supermarket Košík.cz, which posted a loss of CZK 403.9m in the financial year ended 31 March 2022, widening from around CZK 359m in the previous period. The company’s revenue grew only slightly, by about CZK 20 million to a total of CZK 1.9 billion.
German company Metro, which operates in the Czech Republic under the Makro brand, announced in January this year that it had acquired a quarter stake in online supermarket Košík. Among other things, the Makro Košík’s facilities have enabled it to deliver purchases to the regions more quickly. Košík used to commute to cities such as České Budějovice, Brno, Zlín, Ostrava and Olomouc from its Prague warehouse, which was financially unsustainable, the company said earlier.
Source: Rohlík.cz and CTK
