Business during the war. How EVA has renewed logistics and was able to open new stores
In an interview with focus, the executive director of the EVA stores network in an interview with Focus told how local distributors helped the network to meet customer demand, and why one had to make one of the two stores in manganese. As the company explains the company, in the last half a year it was not only necessary to establish all trade processes in the crisis situation, but also to take care of the team and to respond to numerous requests for help.
But these challenges only strengthened EVA. The trade networks of Ukraine estimated their own losses by UAH 50. 7 billion. How does the EVA network evaluate its own losses through war? As of now, our goods are UAH 300 million, another UAH 60 million is the loss of equipment, equipment and materials. This is what is finally confirmed today. We understand that the product that is in the stores in the occupied territory is likely to be lost.
We have already seen this in the liberated regions - the product was either damaged or simply stolen. EVA is widely represented throughout Ukraine, including the frontline regions, such as Kharkiv. How did you manage to organize work in constant fighting? What changed exactly in the work of stores? In some regions, we have not renewed work - where the situation is still very difficult. At the same time, we open our stores in cities where they have not worked for a long time.
First of all, these are the northern regions of Ukraine - Sumy, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr regions. We had a lot of stores near Kiev - Irpin, Bucha, Dimer, Ivankiv, Makariv, Borodyanka. During the occupation, they were almost destroyed, but after the release of settlements we have already resumed them, so now they work fully. I would like to point out that the company was preparing for the war, although we did not believe that it would begin. We made the fuel reserves in advance that came in handy.
This allowed the staff to leave the hostilities as soon as possible. We prepared materials to close the facades of the stores, and immediately did it after a full -scale invasion. Back in early February, the instructions were sent to the employees how to behave. They prepared two bomb shelves at distribution centers in Brovary and Lviv, which then helped us a lot.
In Kharkiv and Nikolaev, we insist that all our employees take care of their safety as possible to respond to air alarm, close shops and go to the nearest shelter. The company is very meticulously looked at where you can restore work and where it is still dangerous. But we understand that our customers need working stores, so we try to balance.
You decide every day: "We can release this team, and it is better for these workers to sit at home"? Once a week or two we decide where you can restore work. And when the store has started, it usually continues to work, just responds to air anxiety. And we only open the store when we have several workers who are ready to work. For example, we have two stores in manganese. Some people can't go to work, but others say they want to work.
Therefore, we collected one team from two stores, so one store works and the other is not. Our people from hostage areas can be relocated to shops in other regions. Where possible, we provide them with workplaces and housing. In April, in an interview, you said that out of 1100 EVA stores did not work 200. What is the situation now? There are no 179 stores now. Most of them are in the occupied territory. In the control area we do not have 12 stores in Kharkiv.
There are still shops in Bakhmut, Kramatorsk, which do not work, but it is already a war zone. In Nikolaev we evacuated our stores for a week, but now they have renewed their work. Are there any regions where do you open new stores? These are those locations that were agreed even to a full -scale invasion. We had to pause, but now we open in Dnipro, Kiev and Western Ukraine. Today, eleven new stores are already working, others are still in the process.
In the same interview, you said that 30% of stores were cut from logistics. The situation was completely equalized? Now there are no problems with logistics. Our distribution centers in Lviv, Brovary and Dnipro work fully. The work of the distribution center in Kharkiv has not yet been fully resumed, but it provides its region. Previously, you had a wide system of material and intangible staff support. They even sent workers on vacation to Egypt and Turkey as an incentive.
What is left now, given the circumstances? Indeed, for many years we sent our employees on vacation to different places. This year, this program was not implemented for clear reasons. I would like to point out that we left all the salaries of staff in stores unchanged, did not reduce it. Since September, we restore motivation for the plan. Many companies support the Armed Forces or any volunteer projects.
EVA, together with Varus, at the beginning of the invasion was also transferred to 5 million UAH to the Fund "Come back alive". Do you continue to support them or maybe you now have other projects that you can talk about? Yes, we continue to support the "Come back alive. " Our clients can donate money from 1 UAH on cash desks during purchases. We transfer these funds monthly, and today the total amount has reached more than UAH 7 million.
On February 26, we created an operational headquarters because we started receiving numerous requests for help. Who addressed you? These were maternity houses, orphanages, shelters. Just people who were hiding in the subway were addressed in the cellars. We even had to rent an armored car to take a party of diapers to the maternity ward to Kharkiv. But most of the requests were, of course, related to the Armed Forces.
Once we were approached by a volunteer fund, they were given a whole conveyor so that they could pack charity. Who knows is a very difficult job, especially with volunteer deficiency, so it has greatly simplified their lives. In total, we satisfied more than 360 requests for help, and gave the goods totaling about 5 million UAH. It is really difficult to organize such a process, because people from all over Ukraine have turned to us.
The operational headquarters still operates, and all processes are fully adjusted. The appeals themselves became a little smaller, and they changed. For example, among other things, we are sent for hygienic goods for wounded military people in hospitals. In our central office there is a restaurant for employees where we have a new kitchen before the war.
However, from the first days of a full -scale invasion, we decided to prepare full complex lunches for the wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Clinical Hospital. II Mechnikov (Dnipro). Every day with the weekend, including 120 to 150 servings. Probably, your employees are also fighting on the front. How did you help them? There are more than 300 EVA staff in the Armed Forces. We immediately provided those who needed it, German production bulletproof vests.
Then they bought another 200 certified bulletproof vests, which were given to the anti -aircraft missile brigade of the East Air Command. Once we invited drones, and we gave our own, because we had drones before the war to inspect the locations for the company. Then they bought additional drones for the army. From the big projects, I can mention the program of our owner [Ruslan Shostak]-"Childhood without war", which due to which almost 1.
5 thousand orphans, as well as more than 500 of their guardians or accompanying ones were transported to Turkey to safe conditions. It is the largest centralized evacuation project of children from Ukraine during the war. We ourselves help this project, and our buyers will also do money for them. The EVA online store has always enjoyed customer popularity.
How has online demand changed, orders, which groups of goods have become more interesting, and how is online store developed in general? In March, we were without exaggeration one of the very few online stores that continued to work. Most operators of this market simply could not adjust their work in those days, literally. Our warehouse in Brovary stopped our work, we transported all the goods to Lviv, where the warehouse continued to work.
In the first or second month of the war, we had about 60% of the pre-war number of orders. Now the online store is vividly restoring work, and we have already left 85% of last year's orders. And in monetary form today we sell even more: it is already 110-115% of the indicators of 2021. If we talk about the structure of orders, at the beginning of the invasion of demand in the category "beauty", the so-called beauty segment, almost completely disappeared, but it was a short period-about 1. 5 months.
Then they bought more household chemicals, diapers and so on. Now the structure has completely recovered: the category "beauty" is sold very well, as is the category "perfume". Demand is constantly increasing, and we return to our pre -war range. What is the fate of the EVA market today and how can it change by the end of the year? This is a difficult question because no one has ever appreciated our destiny in the market. Nielsen estimates our fate only in the structure of national networks.
We have graduated 73%2021, our fate is 77%now. The situation by regions is very different. It is clear that shops in Kharkiv are lagging behind both 20 and 30% of their last year's indicators, but in the west the country is a little different. There the shops work better, including small towns, because many internally displaced persons moved there. What key anti -crisis solutions helped you to establish the company in such a difficult period? We were ready for something, for something - not at all.
For example, we were not preparing for such a collapse that happened to logistics, so our main actions were aimed at aligning this problem. We purchased several trucks - before that we did not have our own cargo cars - to transport the goods to dangerous places where no one wanted to go. They set up work with the railway, began to carry goods with wagons, which they never did before the war.
They adapted the cost very quickly, because all our employees, executives are well aware of what they do in any crisis. Another important point is negotiations with landlords, because, apparently, we cannot pay rent now as it was before. A very difficult situation is directly with the product, with its presence in Ukraine. But we have agreed in advance with local distributors that they will be our suppliers with logistics problems.
We quickly included them in our work, but they only supplied the goods to where we could get safe. They also had major transport problems. First, it was not enough, and secondly, it moved very slowly through numerous roadblocks and curfew. Now all these problems have disappeared - there are no passes through bridges in Kiev, curfew is reduced, the number of checkpoints has decreased significantly, so transport is moving normally. I can not say that there are no problems at all.
We are very lacking imported goods from transnational companies. We continue to resolve this issue every day. Can you name the three most important principles in your work at this time when business requires quality, quick management decisions? The answer is in the question. As with every other crisis, it is now necessary, on the one hand, to make quick decisions, and on the other, they must be weighed and evaluated from all sides. And, first of all, it is important to always think about people.
Because when we store the team, we also store the company. This year Eva celebrates its 20th anniversary. Are any measures planned in this regard? We decided for ourselves that what is happening in Ukraine and the word "celebrate" is not combined. So no, we will not celebrate, but of course we will note this event. In general, our basic principle, which we guide every year: birthday with us, and celebrate our buyers. And this year will not be an exception.