Jakob Maarbjerg the Chief Executive of Normal
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What is Normal and what products do they offer?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk. My next guest runs a giant Danish retailer which claims to sell all the things that you cannot do without in your everyday life and should not be missing from your shelves at home. They include, of course, toothpaste, makeup and shaving products. The chain, which has almost a thousand stores in 10 countries, is called Normal and it says its prices are abnormal. Abnormally low, I presume. Now it's opening in the ILAC Centre in Dublin today and Jakob Marbjerg, is the chief executive of Normal, and is sitting in front of me. Good morning. Good morning.
What is Normal?
How does the store design create a unique shopping experience?
Normal is a store where you can buy all the essentials. You're being led into a maze-like store, so you have to walk through the whole store, and you'll find products like hair care, body care, makeup, oral care, and also some confectionery to... to complement the shopping experience.
And the maze basically is to tempt them. It's to keep them moving at a slow pace to tempt them with various different things.
It is, but it's also to create an adventure, to create the treasure hunting feeling. So we try to mix all the well-known brands with a lot of exotic products, products that you found on your vacation or saw you on vacation, and then a lot of new trending products. So what's new and trending? Right now, some of the things that are trending in my hand is K-beauty. K-beauty?
What new trends are currently popular in the beauty industry?
As in Korea? It's from Korea. So face care or skin care from Korea, which is a huge trend right now. And that's really what we like to do, to bring in new trends into the market and then always at a very low price. Or an abnormal price.
Now, how do you afford or how can you sell well-known brands from abroad? Colgate or shaving products from Gillette, whatever it is, at prices which might be below the supermarket.
How can you afford to do that? We have a very efficient setup. So we try to cut away all unnecessary processes.
How does Normal keep prices low for well-known brands?
And for instance, on the marketing, we don't do like... like the big catalogs that a lot of other chains are doing.
Do you do above-the-line advertising, normal advertising, kind of on TV and radio?
Yeah, we do in some markets, but we won't do that before we have national coverage with our stores. So a lot of your success is based on word of mouth? It is, indeed.
And there are similar stores from rival companies also from Scandinavia. So why is it that, you know, Denmark has produced these types of retailers? And of course, everyone knows the Swedish retailer, IKEA. And you're a kind of, dare I say, a smaller version of that without furniture.
What strategies contribute to Normal's marketing success?
Yes, you can say that. I think we don't focus that much on what competitors do or what other concepts do. But what we want to do is really to create this treasure hunting. And we think that the maze works really well for that purpose.
You are only in Europe, is that correct? And first Irish store today in the ILEC Center. It is the first Irish store.
Why did you go for the ILEC Center out of curiosity? Because it's... For several reasons.
Why did Normal choose the ILAC Centre for their first Irish store?
It's a good retail street. It's a street in a historical part of Dublin. In Henry Street in Dublin. Henry Street, yes. And you also have some other flagship stores like Penny's just down the street. And Arnott's as well. And we like to be where there's high footfall. Yeah.
Oh, I see. Okay.
What special promotions are available for the opening day?
And you haven't opened in the UK yet. You opened in Ireland before you opened in the UK. Yes.
That's unusual. Yes, but that was the same in Southern Europe. We also opened in Portugal before Spain. And I think the size of the Irish market is very appealing to us because it's the size... makes it possible for us to create an intimacy and a connection, both with employees and also the customers.
And you've got quite a few treats for those who do turn up today on the opening. You open at half eight and you've got quite a few treats for those people who do turn up first.
Yes, there will be goodie bags for a lot of the people. And then for the first, I think it's 30 people in line, they will give a gift certificate. And we also have some other competitions.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is Normal and what products do they offer?
0:01–0:42
2
How does the store design create a unique shopping experience?
0:42–1:41
3
What new trends are currently popular in the beauty industry?
1:41–2:25
4
How does Normal keep prices low for well-known brands?
2:25–3:06
5
What strategies contribute to Normal's marketing success?
3:06–3:40
6
Why did Normal choose the ILAC Centre for their first Irish store?
3:40–4:07
7
What special promotions are available for the opening day?
4:07–5:45