The only constant, consumers’ preference

The impressive response and attendance of the Greek consumers during the few days of free operation of the retail stores in Greece and the constant consumer preference in the other countries where the JUMBO Group operates resulted in a balance of the sales during January.

• In January 2021, the 52 stores in Greece started their operation again on January 18th until January 30th. The net sales of the parent company - excluding Intragroup sales – were increased by + 0,20%, compared to last January when all stores operated without any restrictions.

• Regarding Cyprus: At the beginning of January, three out of the five stores were open. As of January 10th, 2021, all stores remained closed due to the lockdown imposed in the country. As a result, sales of the stores in Cyprus decreased by approximately -72%, compared to January 2020.

It should be noted that on February 8th, 2021, the reopening of the stores in Cyprus is expected.

• In Bulgaria, eight out of the nine stores were open during January 2021, recording an increase of sales by approximately + 24% y-o-y.

• In Romania, during January 2021, all 14 Jumbo stores in the country were open, recording sales increase by + 27% compared to January 2020 with the same number of stores operating.

In total, Group’s sales in the first month of 2021, were decreased by -0,6% y-o-y.

As far as Greece is concerned, today only 26 out of the 52 stores are operating normally as the epidemiological data in Attica, Patras and Chalkis led to the imposition of new restrictions.

Under the new framework, retail stores in the "red" areas of the country operate under the method of “click inside” only for clothing, footwear and stationery items and under the “click away” method for all other items.

Jumbo Group, as a regular practice, supports without reservation the choices of the State. JUMBO made an effort for two days to operate its stores that are located in these areas practically in the same way as the rest of the market operates.

Unfortunately, the implementation of the new framework in Jumbo stores has been proven unfriendly to our customers and does not allow in practice the operation of the stores even under this compromised way that has been chosen.

As a result, the company proceeded to a new suspension of the operation of the 26 out of the 52 stores in the "red" areas (Attica, Patras and Chalkis) from Thursday, February 4th , and until the expansion of the click inside method to the whole product portfolio of Jumbo.