The strongest shopping day was Monday 16 December 2019, when the daily turnover rose to 263 million crowns. “Last year was full of innovation and investment. Also thanks to our 2,100 employees, the company managed to grow year-on-year and showed major growth in several countries: the turnover in Hungary rose by 69%, Slovakia 15.4%, Czech Republic 15.5%. In the corporate segment, we achieved a share of 30% of total turnover and we see great potential here,” said Tomáš Havryluk, vice-chairman of the board of directors of Alza.cz, adding, “Although we focus on business, we do not forget basic human values and continue to actively support meaningful non-profit projects helping disadvantaged groups. At the end of the year we launched a unique project called Aid Constellation or a project aimed to support animals in shelters. In 2019, we supported a total of 80 organisations.“
In 2019, some segments broke the 2 billion mark—laptops, mobile phones, small home appliances, large home appliances and accessories. The billion segments include: televisions, PC components. and audio-video. In units, the top three best-selling products in 2019 were: Alza.cz gift voucher for CZK 500 (EUR 20, HUF 5,000), Xiaomi Mi Band 4 fitness tracker, and MS Office 365 Personal.
The interest in financial services is also constantly rising. The number of customers using the One Third program (purchase for a third of the price and pay within 3 months without any increase) almost tripled year-on-year. The average purchase price was 11,000 CZK. The interest in Alza NEO (device rental) subscription service also increased - corporate customers make up 25%. Other services such as product insurance or extended warranty grew 50% faster than Alza as a whole. A total of 56% of customers prefer to pay by card (28% online, 28% via a terminal at the store or AlzaBox). Card payments are gradually pushing out standard cash transactions, while cash on delivery retains its stable popularity.
In 2019, the company opened a new call centre in Třinec, on Anděl the first showroom in Prague specialising purely on mobile phones, and expanded its AlzaBox network to 200. It also significantly strengthened the program for business customers, schools and government institutions, and supported 3D printing at schools with a rental program. The company was among the first to launch Apple Pay, Alza Invoice Financing, which is an innovative financial service for suppliers, and also expanded the selection of products available in the One Third program. Alza also added new shipping options— AlzaExpres is launching its service in regional cities, Prague has seen addition of bicycle messengers, there is new cooperation with Liftago, and the company is now experimenting with dropshipping. It also launched sale of pet products.
The e-shop entered the year 2020 with 272,000 items available for sale. This year, the company plans to invest heavily in delivery services—among other things, AlzaExpres shall expand to still more cities and the company expects to add more AlzaBoxes. Investments in the development of internal systems will also be significant, which is associated with extensive recruitment of IT specialists. There will also be a significant amount of interesting news from the field of latest technologies.
About Alza.cz a.s.:
Internet market leader and trendsetter. This is evidenced not only by the record turnover in 2019, in which Alza earned CZK 29.3 billion without VAT, but also a number of innovations in the field of e-commerce (self-service Future Branches, AlzaExpres, shipping service, payment in BTC and LTC and their sale), online sale of solar power plants and electric cars, pilot integration of reusable REPETEBOXes, introduction of unique services such as One Third, Test, or AlzaNEO, teaching at the University of Economics, proprietary brands AlzaPower and AlzaEco, expansion to Hungary, Austria and others). Alza also does weekend deliveries, or customers can come to a branch store and make their purchase in person. Customers can collect their orders in a wide network of 24/7 AlzaBox collection points. The company also offers a club program Alza Premium. The company has won a number of awards for its achievements – e.g. Most Trusted Brand, Křišťálová Lupa Award, MasterCard Dealer of the Year, etc. The company also strives for social responsibility; just last year it supported 80 non-profit organisations and launched a unique CSR platforms Alza Pelíšek and Aid Constellation. The most important Alza milestones can be found here.
