Mateusz Madejski, journalist Business Insider Polska: Many Polish clients probably do not realize where Action comes from.
Hajir Hajji, CEO of Action: I connect with the Netherlands, our headquarters is located in Zwaagdijk-oost, it's a bit north of Amsterdam. It was here that Action was founded.
How was the network created?
In fact, two colleagues founded it. They saw that when it comes to food, then – and it was the beginning of the 1990s – there were a lot of discount stores with promotions. But they were not in the non-food sector. And they said it was time to change it. They were convinced that customers just pay too much for non-food articles. The founders had experience in the supermarket industry. And our business is based on many concepts known from supermarkets.
And where does the name come from?
She also comes from supermarkets. Are you in supermarkets?
Bright.
Well, there are sections with promotions in supermarkets, or at least they are in supermarkets in the Netherlands. Action – that is, action, promotion, is to symbolize the promotion, low price. Only in Action such promotions do not apply to the section, but the whole store.
The company's founders started business in 1993 in the Netherlands, but then they began to operate in other markets, in Belgium, and Germany. Then there were ownership changes – the founders sold the company to the Fund. And the expansion became even faster. We have been in Poland since 2017. It was the first market for us in Central and Central Europe. We were very curious if the concept would be accepted in this part of Europe – but it turned out that it was perfect. But we also go in other directions. Last year, we debuted, for example, in Portugal. In 2025 we are opening in two countries – in Switzerland and Romania. Poland is particularly important to us – we also have three distribution centers here. So Poland also serves other countries where Action is. And of course Poland is one of those countries where we open extremely many stores. We currently have 400 of them in this market.
Do you become a store for economical, just like grocery discount stores?
We have quite simple rules. We always put the customer in the first place and we want him to have the most favorable prices – and we make sure that the quality is also the best. Our main goal is that customers just come back to us. And this is happening. But we also focus on technology and environmental protection. We have – rightly – the opinion of a store with favorable prices. However, the data show that we are not a network for any specific social group. They buy very wide groups from us – regardless of the level of education, income or origin. We also see this very clearly in Poland.
I have always thought about what the non-food concept actually means. You have food in your offer.
Yes it's true. We have food from the very beginning, but this is only one of many categories. I don't think we want to develop a food offer in Action.
The rest of the article is under video material
“For less than 2 euros”
I must admit that Action is developing strongly on the continent. Recent years have been a dynamic development of the network, not only in Poland. You reach up to 3,000 points. What do you think you managed to convince customers?
As I have already mentioned – putting the client in the first place. But I can also say that we have a fairly simple offer structure. 90 percent The products are the same in every country. This simplifies shopping and logistics – and provides low prices. 2/3 of our range can be bought for less than 2 euros. The popularity is also that we change the range quickly. We deliver 150 new products every week, so the offer changes quickly. The answer to the question, where does we have such low prices, but it is quite simple: we simply buy goods in very large quantities. However, if we see that a product cannot be sold at a very low price, we simply give up selling it.
Action – at least in Poland – also avoids expensive locations.
It is true, as a rule, we avoid the most prestigious streets, which also allows us to save on shop locations. But we are also open to various locations. Sometimes we have Action as a free -standing store, sometimes as part of a shopping park, sometimes we are in a shopping center … This versatility certainly works strongly in our favor.
Shops in the Netherlands and Poland differ from each other?
Our assumption is that in every country Action stores are exactly the same. The only differences may result from legislative requirements in different countries, which, of course, we always respect.
Action store store
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Mateusz Madejski / Business Insider
60 new stores
What are your plans for Poland?
We will definitely open more stores on your market. I think that the number this year will be similar to the one from last – i.e. about 60 new locations. However, I cannot say what target number of stores in Poland will be satisfactory for us. We simply do not know this – we learn the Polish market with every new opening. I must also say that we have a great team in Poland that feels the market perfectly – and it is of course thanks to it we are developing so quickly.
There are more and more self -service cash registers in Polish stores. In Action, sometimes they can be seen.
In fact, we have such cash registers in the Netherlands and Belgium and in individual stores in other countries – but in Poland we have a lot of them. I think Polish customers just like this solution. I haven't seen Lidl or Biedronka without a maintenance free cash in Poland. In Poland, it is therefore a much more popular solution than in other markets on which we operate.
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