Action: the fastest growing non-food discounter in Europe

The Dutch retailer Action has been hailed as one of the best performing retailers over the last 10 years. The company has grown its revenues by 667% to 8,9 billion € from 2013 to 2022. At the same time it has been able to maintain (and lately increase) it’s Operating margins at or above 10%. This has led to a cumulative EBITDA of 4,9 billion € since 2013.

This profitability and growth has been a great success for 3i the private eguity firm that invested 279 million € into Action in 2011. The Times hailed Action as “the best private equity deal ever”. According to Times 3i has so far gained 88 times its initial investment.

What is Action?

The company was founded in 1993 in Enkhuizen in the Netherlands. Like all good discounters it relies on simplicity

• assortment consists of only 6 000 products

• this leads to big volumes on individual SKUs

• there are no fixed assortments creating a treasure hunt feel, like with the centre store non-food assortment at Lidl

• small overheads as well as simple and standardised stores and processes are table stakes for all discounters

• similarly discounters tend to ignore marketing and expensive high street locations

• Action sells low priced products: many of the proudcts (1 500 SKUs) are priced €1 or €2 or less

Action has internationalised rapidly over the last years. The company has more than doubled its store count in five years. From 1 000 stores in 2017 to 2 100 stores today.

————————-

Would you like to learn more about the retail trends and numbers?

We conduct trend reviews, from individual presentations to ongoing quarterly reviews. Read more about them in the Services section or send us a message at arhi@adainsights.fi, and we can talk more about how we could help you understand the changing retail environment.