IADS Exclusive: Greece is going upmarket, but not only

The IADS was invited to take part in the 2022 Future of Retail Conference organised in Athens last May by the Hellenic Federation of Retail. The Association was interviewed on stage, along with Mr Dimosthenis Boumis, the CEO of Attica, the emblematic Greek department store, and invited to discuss the future of retail in city centres. 

It was also the opportunity to reconnect with old acquaintances, since the former CEO of Minion, a defunct department store in Athens, used to be a member of the IADS and is now a member of the Attica board. Attica has gone through the Covid-19 pandemic with the same difficulties as other department stores in the world and came up with a new strategy designed to rely less on international tourists (even though they remain more than welcome) and more on the local Greek clientele, from every social class. If appealing to the rich Greeks is not a head scratcher, the current social and revenue structure in Greece makes it a bit more complicated to appeal the to lower classes without losing glamour or soul.

We visited the City Link flagship, in the heart of Athens, very close to the infamous Syntagma square, in order to see how the store is implementing and executing the new strategy.

IADS provides its members with a weekly in-depth analysis on retail-oriented topics. This is an example of the themes the Association regularly addresses, and the topic of an article from the IADS members-only newsletter date 05 October 2022.