Witt (mail order business)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Josef Witt GmbH

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1907
Seat Weiden , GermanyGermanyGermany 
management Wolfgang Jess (Chairman)
Stefanie Zühlke-Schmidt
Jürgen Angstmann
Johann Kiener
Number of employees 3,100
sales EUR 856 million (according to IFRS) in the 2019/20 financial year
Branch Mail order
Website www.witt-gruppe.eu
As of April 9, 2020

The Josef Witt GmbH (public image: Witt Group ) is an international textile trading company based in Weiden . The Witt Group sells primarily women's outerwear, underwear and home textiles via mail order, around 120 branches and 18 online shops. In addition to the Witt Weiden specialty stores, the branches also include the cheaper Preisland branches. With more than 3,100 employees, the company is one of the largest employers in the northern Upper Palatinate . The Witt Group, best known for the Witt Weiden brand ( spelling : WITT WEIDEN ), is one of the oldest mail order companies for textiles in Germany. In 2006, the Witt Group created a corporate umbrella as a synonym for Josef Witt GmbH, which has been part of the Otto Group since January 1, 1987 . The Witt Weiden brand and numerous subsidiaries in Germany and abroad are combined under this umbrella. In 2019 the company entered the Slovak market.

Company history

Today Witt Group was founded in 1907, by the learned carpenter Josef Witt (1884-1954), than this the grocery store his sister in Reuth bei Erbendorf took over and expanded into a mail for textiles. In 1913 the businessman moved the location of his up-and-coming company to Weiden, 30 kilometers away, because the infrastructure there was better developed. The connection between the family name Witt and the place name Weiden gave rise to the name of the Witt Weiden brand, which is still best known today.

After the First World War and the inflation of the early 1920s, Josef Witt started working in textile manufacturing in 1925. As a result, the company developed into one of the largest textile mail order companies in Europe: In 1934, Josef Witt employed 5,266 people and achieved a turnover of 86 million Reichsmarks.

After the Second World War, business started up again only slowly: In 1948 the company was only able to record a turnover of 3 million D-Marks. By 1950 sales had increased to 90 million Deutschmarks again.

After the death of Josef Witt in 1954 and the death of his wife Monika Witt in 1959, their son Dr. Josef Witt to head the company. Under his leadership, the first Witt Weiden branch was opened in Kaiserslautern that same year. With slogans such as “You buy laundry from Witt” or “Kiwitt Kiwitt, nothing Kiwitt: Witt Weiden Witt Weiden”, the company was one of the first companies to take advantage of the new advertising television .

Since the share of self-made textiles in sales decreased rapidly, Josef Witt GmbH reduced the in-house production of textiles from 1963 and concentrated again on the mail order business. The lack of modernization and errors in product and price policy could not be compensated for, so that the company plunged into an existence-threatening crisis in the 1980s.

In 1987 Josef Witt GmbH was taken over by Schwab AG , a subsidiary of the Otto Group. Thanks to the new management and a focus on the core business - women's clothing, lingerie and home textiles - sales rose from 159 million D-Marks in 1986 to around 430 million D-Marks in 1992. In 2005, an automatic container center was established put into operation in Ullersricht near Weiden. Since 2008, at peak times, up to 120,000 items have been shipped from the logistics center in Weiden-Brandweiher, just outside the city gates. At the beginning of 2015, the company, which has been known as the Witt Group since 2006, opened a further construction phase of the logistics center with the goods distribution center III with an automated high-bay warehouse and integrated goods acceptance. In the 2019/20 financial year, the Witt Group recorded sales of around EUR 856 million ( IFRS ).

  • Witt group in Weiden (the old Witt building east of Schillerstrasse)

  • Witt Group in Weiden (administration building, Schillerstraße 4–12 from the south, confluence with Albrecht-Dürer-Str. / Schillerstraße)

  • Witt Group in Weiden (administration building, Schillerstraße 4–12)

modernization

After the original sales via catalogs, the textile mail order company has used other sales channels over the years, for example the first Witt-Weiden branch was opened in Kaiserslautern in 1959. There are more than 125 branches nationwide. At the beginning of the 1990s, Josef Witt GmbH began to found additional brands and subsidiaries, which have been grouped under the umbrella of the Witt Group since 2006 and are intended to promote internationalization, for example with the WITT International brand. The company first entered the mail order business in Switzerland (1992), and shortly afterwards in Austria (1993). Later the market entries were made in France (2000), Great Britain (2002), Russia (2007), the Netherlands (2008), Czech Republic (2009), Italy (2010), Ukraine (2011), Sweden (2012), Kazakhstan (2013 ), the USA (2016) and Slovakia (2019).

Since 1997 you can buy the goods of the Weiden company on the Internet. Today the Witt Group is active in ten countries with its catalogs and 18 online shops with ten sales brands.

Web links

Commons : Witt Weiden  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Witt group in numbers. In: Website of the Witt Group. Retrieved September 20, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Company history. In: Website of the Witt Group. Retrieved September 20, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Market, brands, countries. In: Website of the Witt Group. Retrieved September 20, 2017 .
  4. ^ Witt group now also in Slovakia. In: Website of the Witt Group. Accessed June 3, 2019 (German).
  5. ↑ Inauguration ceremony. In: Website of the Witt Group. Retrieved September 20, 2017 .
  6. ↑ 20 years of e-commerce. In: Website of the Witt Group. Retrieved September 20, 2017 .