HEMA (store)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See HEMA (disambiguation) for other uses.
HEMA (originally an acronym for Hollandse Eenheidsprijzen Maatschappij Amsterdam, "Dutch Standard Prices Company Amsterdam") is a Dutch department store chain. It was part of the Maxeda company until June 2007, when it was bought by Lion Capital LLP. The chain is characterized by relative low pricing of generic housewares, which are mostly made by and for the chain itself.
The first HEMA opened in Amsterdam on November 4th, 1926. Originally, as a price-point retailer, goods were sold using standard prices (hence its name), with everything having a Standard price of 10, 25 or 50 cents, and later also 75 and 100 cents. After World War II, this model could not be sustained and the standard pricing system was abandoned. But a period of rapid expansion followed: now almost every town of any importance in the Netherlands has a HEMA. Locations carry a wide variety of goods, including clothing, food, bicycle equipment, gardening tools, and office supplies.
Since the 1990s, HEMA has also expanded into neighboring countries. Today HEMA employs in excess of 10,000 workers at 450 stores in the Netherlands,[1] 56 stores in Belgium, 9 in Germany and 1 in France.
