Il Passo footwear retailer bets on online sales

Il Passo footwear retailer has recently opened its first manufactory in Bucharest, following an EUR 500.000 investment. For 2016, Petru Chiriac estimates the company’s turnover at EUR 700,000. Also, starting next year, a significant investment of EUR 200,000 will be made in the online store and promotion, and the first targeted countries are Hungary and Bulgaria. “We want to expand our business as soon as possible.

There are other Romanian brands in foreign countries and we want to follow them. (…) We try to extend the retail network both online, with the online store having the country’s extension, and offline, with flagship stores, but we will do everything step by step. We will start this expansion with Hungary and Bulgaria,” added the owner.

In Il Passo manufactory works 25 people for an average salary of RON 1800. Currently, the manufactory produces over 10,000 shoes per season, thus meaning almost 30% of the company’s sales. Furthermore, here are produced only shoes for women, the other products sold by Il Passo being bought from other suppliers. “Our purpose is to cover the entire women shoes production in our own manufactory and we are going to open another manufactory, bigger, in other location,” said Petru Chiriac, the general manager of Il Passo, in the press conference.

The brand activates in Romania for 17 years now, having currently 15 Il Passo stores and two Tamaris franchised stores, located in Brașov, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Constanța, Craiova, Iași, Oradea, Ploiești and Timișoara.

“For this year, we will open up only one Il Passo store, in Bucharest’s Park Lake, but we will facelift some other units. The investment in such opening/reopening is EUR 60,000,” explained Petru Chiriac.

Currently, the brand sells 70 percent women footwear and 30 percent men footwear, and the average bill is EUR 100. In 2015, Il Passo sold products for over EUR 7.5 million, out of which EUR 600.000 were online sales from www.ilpasso.ro.

Oana Vasiliu