
Hema
HEMA has over 750 stores in 9 different countries, selling household articles and clothing.
The Challenge
At HEMA the challenge was that we sell a wide range of different products. That is food, non-food and clothing. It is impossible to have in-depth knowledge about every single product, so our buyers and category managers can use the assistance of clever tools. The raw material reports have begun to form a core component of every talk with a supplier.
The Solution
We do not start negotiating without prior WTP preparation. Recently there was a tough negotiation with a supplier about plungers for example. It was about a Wooden shaft (80 grams) and a rubber suction cup (100 grams), how difficult could it be? The prices had indeed risen the past few months, but in comparison to 2 years ago, they had in fact gone down by about € 0.10. This insight proved valuable as we sell a substantial number of plungers. So, this insight saved us a lot of money. I believe in should costing and I am convinced that you get better results during a negotiation when you negotiate based on facts. The world is becoming more transparent and we gladly invite and help spread that development.
This story was sent to us by Sean Thistleton, Director Global Procurement at HEMA.
More stories

A national distributor of energy
The Challenge We already followed the development of raw materials we buy, but we never had a structured approach to follow these developments. I was busy with a tender for buying cables, for which we contacted 4 different suppliers. We aimed to extend the contracts with our suppliers for 1 year. One of the suppliers […]
Discover more
Bouwmaat
BOUWMAAT is a large Dutch chain of stores selling construction and DIY related articles. The Challenge To be fair, we never really thought about the composition of a product. We know roughly what materials are of importance, but what the impact on a price is, was relatively unknown. I had the intention of getting the […]
Discover more
Fetim Group
Fetim is a wholesaler, dedicated to improve peoples houses. They sell decorative and constructive materials all over the world. The Challenge The main reason for us to start using WTP was because we found it challenging to reach a sufficient margin. Furthermore, the traditional way of negotiating was no longer effective. The lack of well-presented […]
Discover more