Heine (mail order business)
| Heinrich Heine GmbH
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1951 |
| Seat |
Karlsruhe , Germany
|
| management | Jürgen Habermann (Chairman of the Management Board) Maximilian Lang |
| Number of employees | 400 |
| Branch | Distance selling |
| Website | www.heine.de |
The Heinrich Heine GmbH (proper spelling heine ) is a fashion brand and since 1976 a wholly owned subsidiary of the Otto Group . The brand offers products from the areas of fashion and living. The company's headquarters are in Karlsruhe , Baden-Württemberg . In addition to Germany, Heine is also represented in Austria, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands. Around 400 full-time employees are currently employed at heine (as of March 2019).
Company history
The company was founded in 1951 by Karl Heinrich Heine in Karlsruhe. The company initially served to sell a game developed by Karl Heinrich Heine himself. He designed an advertising medium, had 50,000 copies of it enveloped and distributed by bicycle. The game advertised in this way has been sold a total of 100,000 times in Germany.
In the following years, heine became a mail order company for gift items; Works of art, Russian icons and antiques were also distributed in this way. In 1969, textiles were added to the catalog for the first time and served as the basis for the first Otto cooperation in spring 1974. In 1976, the headquarters of the mail-order company heine in Karlsruhe was almost completely destroyed in a major fire. In the same year Otto-Versand took over 100 percent of the company.
In 1984, 100,000 catalogs were sent to Switzerland for the first time. The first French catalog was published in 1991 under the name helline . With the premiere of the main catalog in 1995, heine also appeared in Austria for the first time.
In June 1996, heine went online with his website. The online shop opened in 2000, and the catalogs have also been available online since 2002.
On January 1, 2008, heine took over the remaining shares in Manufactum Hoof & Partner KG for an estimated 20 million euros. heine had held a 50 percent stake in Manufactum since 1998.
On October 15, 2012, the team was strengthened by Carlos Voekt as managing director, who is responsible for category management and advertising and replaces Verena Czaja, who left the company on December 31, 2012. Voekt left the company on January 31, 2016. His successor was Sandra Rehm.
Since April 15, 2018, heine has again had two managing directors: Maximilian Lang (creative purchasing and procurement) and Jürgen Habermann (chairman of the management board, responsible for finances, sales and human resources since October 1, 2014).
Shareholdings of the Heine Group
heine is represented internationally with subsidiaries in Switzerland, Austria and France (under the name helline ). At the beginning of 2006, heine expanded into the Netherlands. In addition, heine has the subsidiary KS-Europe , which offers services in the areas of lettershop and marketing logistics.
E-Commerce and New Media
The first heine website went online in the spring of 1996 at the Karlsruhe location. Since 2009 the focus has been increasingly on e-commerce. On the one hand, this increased the degree of updating of the product ranges. On the other hand, there are numerous applications and features online that inspire you through the range. The popular online shop offers over 22,000 products from the areas of fashion and living. In the area of m-commerce, heine has so far launched three iPhone apps and the heine iPad app and has had its own mobile web shop since 2011.
Criticism and Social Responsibility
The magazine Stern reported in 2007 that, among other things, embroidered blouses for the heine mail order company in India were made using child labor.
The Otto Group ensures that its suppliers comply with minimum social standards. In 2007, the personnel capacities to oversee the social program in the stores were increased to such an extent that there is a social officer for every important shopping store . The Otto Group works closely with NGOs “Non-Governmental Organizations” in all of the processes mentioned . In addition, the company employs an “Asian Representative” who represents sustainability issues in Asia.
sustainability
As a company of the Otto Group , heine is pursuing a strategy of sustainable management, currently consisting of various initiatives. The sustainable products have the following seals and certificates:
Economic development
Since 2007 the company has gone through several cost-saving and restructuring measures that continue to this day.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ [1] Heine company portrait
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ a b Heinrich Heine GmbH. Accessed on December 21, 2012.
- ↑ new trade 1.2.16 Accessed July 5, 2018.
- ↑ re-trade 9.3.18 Retrieved on July 5, 2018.
- ↑ KS-Europe Retrieved July 5, 2018.
- ↑ Stern Dan McDougall, Stefan Schmitz: Otto Group: Child Labor for Heine Dispatch, Stern , February 11, 2007
- ↑ Heine-Info, Social Responsibility
- ↑ heine company, sustainability
- ↑ Closure of the central warehouse
- ↑ Job cancellation due to the sales development ( Memento from May 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive )