Scan Magazine

By Signe Hansen

One of JYSK’s first four stores opened in Northern England

“I have a great offer for you.” This statement in Lars Larsen’s strong Jutlandic dialect has made the man a legend in Denmark. Everybody knows his story; the small entrepreneur who started out with one store and now, 30 years later, runs JYSK group, a business empire with over 1,500 stores turning over almost two billion pounds. In the UK, on the other hand, JYSK and Larsen have just made their debut. We talk to Marketing Manager Dara Goolsby to see how the modest merchant has been welcomed.

It is not much more than a year ago since the first two British JYSK stores selling low-priced duvets, beddings and furniture opened up in Lincoln and Mansfield; two more followed in Blackburn and York, but while four stores opening in a year represents a good start, the owner has much more extensive and far-reaching plans. “Lars Larsen is quite ambitious; he will tell us that we will have 300 to 500 new stores in the UK within the next 20 years,” says Goolsby.

How to create the great offer

Left: Marketing Manager Dara Goolsby, Right: Danish business legend Lars Larsen

The concept of the stores in the UK is the same as in the rest of JYSK: a great offer and a straightforward and down-to-earth approach to customers. “What we are trying to bring across is the great offer. Obviously that is what JYSK is known for and what we can offer our customers in the UK is that and Scandinavian quality.”

But is this enough to make JYSK stand out in a highly competitive low-price furniture market such as the UK’s? Goolsby admits that the UK market is hard to break. But she maintains that JYSK’s concept of buying in bulk to give the customers the lowest possible price will help Larsen reach his goal of being the most well-known brand in value for money shopping in the world and in the UK. “We are present in 32 countries and next year we are opening in China as well, so we’ve got a lot of buying power. The UK is a difficult market, but a lot of the dealers that we compete with are UK-centric, they are not elsewhere.” Besides having greater buying power than most UK competitors, JYSK also manufactures some products like garden furniture and some of the duvets within the group.

Adapting to the UK

JYSK group has just celebrated its 30^th anniversary, marking the opening of the first JYSK store in Aarhus, where it is still located, in 1979. It was, however, not because of its location in Jutland (Jysk means Jutlandic) that Larsen named the store JYSK. Larsen was planning all along to open a chain of stores, but he wanted all of the stores to be connected to that area because of the Danish word’s connotation, namely modesty, thoroughness and honesty. Obviously these messages are hard to convey to local markets, but Larsen is not only known for his great offers but also for his advertising’s unique impact. To celebrate his 25^th anniversary Larsen sent out 2.4 million free copies of his auto-biography, a book entitled Hello my name is Larsen creating quite a fuss about his person.

Although starting out small, advertising and campaigning are also the means with which Goolsby and her team aim to win over the Brits. “We do a lot of radio commercials in the local areas and send out campaign catalogues in the same way as JYSK does in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia,” says Goolsby.

Larsen was also one of the first business owners to market his business by appearing in his own TV commercials with the statement that made him famous: “Hello my name is Larsen and I have a great offer for you.” However, we should not expect to see Larsen’s moustache on British TV screens any time soon because although there are plans to commence TV campaigns when the chain has had a bit more time to grow, Goolsby does not reckon Larsen will feature in them himself. “No, Larsen is not such a well-known face in the UK yet, so I think we will just go for the goose,” she laughs.

For more details visit:  www.jysk.co.uk