Polish retailer LPP might reduce number of warehouses to cut logistics costs By Reuters

GDANSK (Reuters) -Poland’s biggest retailer LPP might cut back on warehouses as it considers using more of its stores to ship online orders in a bid to reduce logistics costs, CFO Przemyslaw Lutkiewicz said on Thursday.

“Looking at our warehouse network which is quite extensive, it seems that we could have fewer warehouses and use our stores more for shipping to customers,” Lutkiewicz told an analysts’ call.

LPP’s costs grew faster than sales in the third quarter and it was working on ways to reverse this trend, he said.

“Costs in the third quarter grew faster than sales, and this is not a good trend (…) we are already working on making these trends better, we have several initiatives. First of all, we are reducing spending on performance marketing, we would also like to devote more effort to our mobile applications, as they are more effective,” he added.

“On the other hand, we also have an idea how to reduce logistics costs. We are talking here about reorganization of our warehouse network, (…) change of work organization,” Lutkiewicz said.

Lutkiewicz said the company was reviewing costs at every level, from better staff management to energy consumption in stores.

He did not mention job cuts and company representatives were not immediately available to comment.