The history of the largest footwear retail chain began in the early 1990s in the markets of Lower Silesia. Today, CCC Group has about 900 stores in the top ten or so with a total sales area of 500,000. The group also has its own shoe factory with over 12,000 employees and about 40 million pairs of shoes sold annually.
It wouldn’t have been the world’s largest shoe retailer if founder Dariusz Milek hadn’t suffered an injury in the early 1990s that shattered his dreams of professional sports. Today CCC operates in several markets, not only in Europe, because it has showrooms even in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. A total of 950 stores under the CCC, eobuwie.pl, Modivo and DeeZee brands operate in 28 countries. The same person has been behind their success for years, so the story of CCC cannot be told without mentioning what made Milek sell shoes for three decades, and he does so at an increasing rate.
The cyclist started selling shoes from a folding bed
Dariusz Milek was born in Szczecin in 1968. He graduated from a mining college and his passion was cycling. And he had really good results, at some point he was even close to being called up to the national team. During his cycling career, he won more than a hundred races, and in 1992 he became the senior vice-champion of Poland. On the occasion of trips to foreign competitions, he observed how business is arranged in the West.
- I had very good trading skills. In principle, without knowing the language, I could sell anything. I even remember how sometimes they took me on business trips and said that “You will sell us goods,” he recalled in an interview with Bankier.pl. - They all traded, but I was the best at it.
It was very useful for him when the old system collapsed in Poland in the early 1990s, and anyone could become an entrepreneur overnight. It was enough just to organize the goods, and anyone who had a flair for selling could become a real businessman. A folding bed with clothes, socks, watches and other trinkets was also “launched” by the future millionaire. The period of “soap and jam” was short-lived, because in 1991 he became interested in selling shoes.
- A neighbor stood next to me and talked a lot about the shoe trade: about discounts, the method of sale, the choice of the second and third types. When I started counting how much he earns on these shoes, I decided to try it myself. I went to the factory he was talking about and the next day I was able to sell all the goods. So I stayed with my boots,” he continued to a reporter from Bankier.
From Yellow Leg to CCC
One booth quickly turned into several, and Milek came to the conclusion that it was time to take things more seriously. He passed the stands to his family and friends, while he took care of himself. He also provided services to other vendors in the bazaars. He bought whole containers, thanks to which he was able to significantly reduce prices.
After some time, he stopped trading in the open air and opened a store that gave rise to a franchise network. It was the “Yellow Foot” in which shoes were sold mainly from baskets. By keeping the stores very simple and basic equipment, costs could be reduced. Milek also bought shoes from failing factories, so he quickly taught customers that if they wanted to buy cheap “sneakers” or sandals, they should dig into his baskets.
Over time, fewer and fewer people were willing to take mismatched shoes from baskets, and buyers began to pay more attention to quality. To meet these expectations, in 1999 Mila opened her first real store. He worked under the CCC brand, i.e. “Cena Czyni Cuda”.
In 2001, a large warehouse and company headquarters were built in the Legnica Special Economic Zone in Polkowice, and later a shoe factory, from which shoes with the CCC logo were produced. It’s long overdue, because buyers are fed up with low-quality shoes from Asian container ships.
WSE debut, international expansion, new brands
CCC gained momentum, with stores opening in malls across the country and eventually expanding to smaller towns. Seeking funding sources On December 2, 2004, the chain made its debut on the main market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The founder of the company, Dariusz Milek, remained the main shareholder and president of the company.
The rest is already known: overseas expansion (the first fire was the border with Lower Silesia, which is the “command center” of the CCC, Czech Republic), the development of new brands (including Modivo and DeeZee), the acquisition of the online store in 2015 -obuwie.pl. This does not mean that the history of CCC is a streak of endless success. In June 2021, seven banks (Bank Handlowy, Millennium, BNP Paribas, Pekao, mBank, PKO BP and Santander) signed a loan agreement with a company from Polkowice for PLN 886 million and agreed to increase this amount in the future. The shoe giant caught the pandemic, which was also caused by the ban on Sunday sales in force since 2018 (even in a delicate version - in the first and second years of the so-called non-trade Sundays, stores worked on two Sundays). month). In addition, the acquisition of Gino Rossi meant that in 2019 CCC had to forget about profits.
Effect: at the end of April 2021, with cash in the amount of PLN 305 million, the net financial liabilities of the CCC Group amounted to PLN 1.4 billion, of which short-term liabilities amounted to PLN 1.26 billion. In 2019, before the onset of the pandemic and the administrative decisions that introduced, among other things, trade restrictions, CCC Group recorded EBITDA of PLN 849 million. In the financial year ended January 31, 2021 - approximately PLN 58 million. However, in the first quarter of 2021, only PLN 35 million.
Not all acquisitions were profitable either. The condition of the restructuring, which was put forward by the banking consortium, was the sale of the Karl Voegele AG chain of stores in Switzerland, bought three years earlier.
CCC claims not to sell Chinese junk
However, there have been few such misses in the company’s more than thirty-year history. In fact, what Dariusz Milek does not touch is gold. And this should not have ended: in the late 90s, foreign chains, especially the German Deichmann, sharpened their teeth on the Polish market. It seemed that the local, domestic company had no chance against the German magnate with a hundred-year tradition and billions in profits. And yet she emerged victorious from it.
CCC Group addresses its products to a very wide audience. Milek never targeted the wealthiest clients, but the statistic family. At CCC, you can buy sports shoes for PLN 60, as well as branded shoes from Adidas or other brands that cooperate with the chain. The company says the low prices are not the result of outsourcing production to China, as it means savings in the short term.
One of the stories mentioned in the context of CCC’s business idea is that Milek once agreed that a Chinese manufacturer should use cheaper threads in their shoes. So CCC won $1,000, but the price was justified by thousands of complaints because the shoes were of very poor quality. The businessman assures that he no longer resorts to this kind of half-measures. Part of CCC footwear is produced at the factory in Polkowice. From there, the most expensive models sold under the Lasocki brand leave.
- We are proud that the CCC group has the largest footwear factory in Europe, which, moreover, can only be purchased in our stores. I assure you that we do not manufacture products for any foreign companies and are not going to share such a good, recognizable and readily acquired brand, - Marcin Czycherski, vice president of CCC Group, praised the factory in an interview with money.pl. .
This does not mean that when buying from CCC, we support only Polish manufacturers. There are also shoes from China on the shelves, and their share in sales is changing. In 2019, CCC sold a total of 52 million pairs of shoes (an increase of two million year on year). 33 percent The company purchased shoes from Chinese factories, significantly more than last year, when China’s share was just over 30%.
In business as in sports
According to Milek, it is very important to plan your collection, in which the control of the weather forecast plays an important role. “If the summer drags on, people will not buy autumn boots, but warm winter boots,” he once said in an interview. In this way, the company avoids the need to stock unsold shoes.
Describing his business strategy, Dariusz Milek likes to refer to sports terminology. “It’s like a race and I’m in one of the middle stages. It’s never enough - that’s how I am. Previously, we competed with foreign networks for the market in Poland. We won. That’s why we started racing with them in Europe. Which Polish company has been successful in the Austrian market? Nobody. And we have a chance to associate it with our own brand,” he said in an interview with Forbes.
Dariusz Milek was ranked 13th in Wprost’s 100 richest people this year. In previous years, it has consistently ranked in the top ten. This year, the assets of the head of the CCC have decreased from PLN 3.8 billion to PLN 2.8 billion. This is one of the most affected billionaires on our list. “After the tragedy of his stores amid the pandemic, it’s time for a revival. Last year was a record year for him, because he sold products worth more than PLN 7.6 billion, ”the rating description says.
Source: Wprost
