Super-, hyper- or megamarkets offering a wide range of goods in a compact space are a widespread form of shopping in Western countries. It has already been five years since bauMax started its activities in Slovakia by opening its first shop in Bratislava. e.

Its justification is connected with the change in lifestyle and is based on the philosophy of preparing everything needed for all those interested to actively spend their free time and improve their property without any special professional training.

When founding bauMax in the early sixties in Austria, Karlheinz Essl followed the above philosophy, expressed in a motto "Everything for the house and garden". Time has shown his project to have been realistic and at present bauMax ranks among the best chain stores in Austria. Further strategic plans include the addition of eight new megamarkets in this country by the year 2000, so that altogether bauMax will have twelve large shopping centres here.

One hundred shops says it all

After 1989 bauMax started penetrating also in the former postcommunist countries. It opened its first shops in Prague, Budapest and Bratislava, later in Slovenia and Croatia. Since the development in its subsidiaries has been favourable, bauMax will continue to expand its network of shops abroad. Last year three shopping centres were opened in the Czech Republic, and one each in Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia. At present bauMax operates 100 shops and with positive economic development the management expects that forty per cent of its overall turnover will come from East European markets by the year 2002.

There are four bauMax shopping centres in the territory of the Slovak Republic - two in Bratislava and one in Košice and Banská Bystrica, with more than 400 staff. In the summer this year a new bauMax shop will be added in Prešov. Strategic aims of the company include building shopping centres also in other regional towns of Slovakia by the year 2002.

The offer represents 40 thousand different goods

We visited the bauMax centre in Rožňavská street in Bratislava. The grounds enable customers easy access, parking, shopping and loading of goods. According to Mr. Július Černický, the shop manager, the advantage for customers lies among other things in the fact that in all bauMax shops the goods are divided in the same way for better orientation: garden, household, paints, sanitary goods, building materials, tiles, wood, tools and electrical goods. In a concentrated space the company offers about forty thousand different goods. At the same time it also thinks about small businesses and self-employed persons - if interested, they can buy selected goods in larger packaging, at lower prices.

The opponents of this type of shop often argue that bauMax offers above all imported goods which, however, only represent 50 per cent of the offer at present. Mr. Černický said that bauMax is open to cooperation with domestic producers, if they can supply the goods in the required quality and at competitive prices. However, it is important for the producer to conform to other conditions too, such as providing reliable after-sale service and training the shopping centre staff in handling its products. If the producers manage to fulfil the above conditions, they have won because any company which gets into the bauMax stores chain, gets a long-term perspective more or less in the whole central Europe.