Local retailer Colins to expand to China

ISTANBUL

Turkish actors showcase Colins’ fashions at the Istanbul Shopping Fest.

Clothing retailer Colins is going to enter the Chinese market next year and will open 55 new branches in the country, Colin’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Yavuz Eroğlu has told daily Sabah. 

“It is a market we have been working on for a long time. We are going to make a roughly $10 million dollar investment in these stores,” said Eroğlu. 

Eroğlu said Colins was also interested in entering the South African market via the Internet, and was currently examining the Johannesburg market. It is also interested in the European market and is particularly looking to acquire a women’s and children’s clothing line, Eroğlu added. 

“We have begun opening stores in Germany. Europe is going through an economic crisis right now, but it is exactly the kind of market we can thrive in” said Eroğlu, explaining that Europe was not creating new brands and that its shopping centers were very interested in giving them retail space as a new brand. 

Colins aims to have 1,200 stores in 50 different countries by 2015, with 10,000 employees and a $2 billion turnover, according to Eroğlu. Some 60 percent of Colins’ products are made in Turkey and following the government’s new incentive scheme it is looking to begin production in Turkey’s east and southeast, he added.