DECEMBER 2009 SILAG Wareh­ouse Sales held a lar­ge fire­works sale, the big­gest in Ger­ma­ny, for the first time at the end of Decem­ber 2009, to sym­bo­li­cal­ly ring in the 25^th year of SILAG Han­del AG in 2010. Lar­ge quan­ti­ties of fire­works were purcha­sed for this and a lar­ge num­ber of leaf­lets prin­ted and dis­tri­bu­t­ed to all house­holds by post. Class II pyro­tech­nics (New Year fire­works) may be sold only from 29^th to 31^st Decem­ber. To balan­ce out the rush expec­ted accord­ing to expe­ri­ence, the busi­ness direc­tors deci­ded to move the ope­ning on the night of 28^th for­ward to five minu­tes past mid­ni­ght 29^th Decem­ber, a cal­cu­la­ted and yet exci­ting move. … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

DECEMBER 2009 “Adver­ti­sing is an instru­ment of sales-promoting com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on and thus an important pil­lar of any com­pa­ny.” The Chair of the Board of SILAG Group, Sieg­fried Lapa­wa, app­lied this princip­le to the acqui­si­ti­on of the new Head Offices on the busy A3 and con­ver­ted the faca­de of the new wareh­ouse tower into an ide­al site for a “can’t miss it” adver­ti­sing hoar­ding pro­vi­ding an awa­reness level that has sin­ce beco­me inter­re­gio­nal. The impres­si­ve bill­board with an adver­ti­sing space of near­ly 450 m² beca­me estab­lis­hed in the mar­ket wit­hin two and a half years as the lar­gest auto­bahn site in Ger­ma­ny. This mega-area achie­ves an extra­or­di­na­ry level of awa­reness on the three-lane … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

NOVEMBER 2009 The “Alt Ohligs” and Grä­f­ra­ther Klos­ter­bräu bre­we­ries recei­ve the Coope­ra­ti­ve Socie­ty of Bre­we­ries Qua­li­ty Mark for their in-house beers. The beer brands of the “Alt Ohligs” and “Grä­f­ra­ther Klos­ter­bräu” bre­we­ries have been awar­ded the Qua­li­ty Mark of the renow­ned Coope­ra­ti­ve Socie­ty of Bre­we­ries GmbH & Co. KG [the “Brau­ring”] as light ales, also cal­led “Kölsch” in Colo­gne due to their supe­ri­or qua­li­ty ad defi­ned in the arti­cles of asso­cia­ti­on of the of the renow­ned Brau­ring GmbH & Co KG regis­tered at the Federal patent Office. The “Brau­ring” encom­pas­ses 230 medium-sized pri­va­te bre­we­ries in Ger­ma­ny, Aus­tria and Switz­er­land. Only the privately-brewed pre­mi­um beers of the “Brau­ring” mem­ber bre­we­ries are awar­ded … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

OCTOBER 2009 KiK Tex­ti­les & Non-Food GmbH has inclu­ded the twelve-part “ICH WEISS WAS!” audio book into its ran­ge natio­nal­ly with immedia­te effect. This latest non-fiction seri­es, at the ama­zing pri­ce of only €1.99 per CD, pro­ves that know­ledge is not just afford­a­ble but also fun becau­se the drudge of edu­ca­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny is a recur­rent media the­me. The­re has been a lack of ide­as and offers sin­ce befo­re the eco­no­mic cri­sis for pro­mo­ting oppor­tu­nities for child­ren from low-income fami­lies and enab­ling posi­ti­ve access to lear­ning. The offer from SILAG Han­del AG, which tog­e­ther with the Ber­tels­mann sub­si­dia­ry com­pa­ny Ran­dom House Audio deve­lo­ped this audio book edi­ti­on for child­ren from 5 years … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

AUGUST 2009 The SILAG con­cern relo­ca­ted its Head Office and other sto­rage and hand­ling acti­vi­ties to Lan­gen­feld in 2007 in the cour­se of its expan­si­on. Today, 80% of the value crea­ti­on of the SILAG Com­pa­ny is pro­du­ced at the Lan­gen­feld site. The remai­ning 20% is dis­tri­bu­t­ed bet­ween Solin­gen, Son­ne­feld near Coburg, and Mül­heim. The core busi­ness of the SILAG con­cern is tra­de in con­su­mer goods for ever­y­day needs. In par­ti­cu­lar, the SILAG con­cern sup­plies retail and well-known natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal who­le­sa­le com­pa­nies as well as dis­coun­ters and indus­try. In so doing, SILAG offers con­cepts which ensu­re for cus­to­mers bet­ter mar­ke­ting of their pro­ducts. Both SILAG and their cus­to­mers bene­fit from … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

JUNE 2009 Even befo­re SILAG Wareh­ouse Sales ope­ned its doors at 10.00 sharp on Thurs­day 25.6.2009 gre­at num­bers of curious bargain-hunters were wai­t­ing at the ent­ran­ce. The ope­ning cele­bra­ti­on had been plan­ned in every detail for weeks and adver­ti­sed in the who­le of the area sur­roun­ding Lan­gen­feld. Lar­ge hoar­dings, leaf­lets, adver­ti­se­ments, HGV sti­ckers and a new web­site announ­ced the three-day event con­spi­cuous­ly. The­re were many full shop­ping trol­leys. Sel­ling like abso­lu­te hot­ca­kes were main­ly items such as kit­chen rolls, dol­lies at an unbe­liev­a­ble €10 or the Fly­mo multi-function app­li­an­ce, redu­ced by 60%. But it wasn’t just the arti­cles redu­ced in pri­ce by up to 75% that temp­ted the visi­tors in … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

MAY 2009 We are final­ly the­re – in clo­se col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with the City of Lan­gen­feld, SILAG Han­del AG has found a site for the new SILAG Wareh­ouse Sales buil­ding. The new Wareh­ouse Sales right next to the SILAG pre­mi­ses on Lie­big­stra­ße 1 in Lan­gen­feld will begin with a grand ope­ning cele­bra­ti­on on 25^th June 2009. A lar­ge wareh­ouse on the com­pa­ny grounds is cur­r­ent­ly being con­ver­ted and reno­va­ted for this pur­po­se. “We are hap­py to have found a new site for our Wareh­ouse Sales so quick­ly and we thank the City of Lan­gen­feld for their excel­lent col­la­bo­ra­ti­on”, says Wolf­ram Stroese, Mem­ber of the SILAG Han­del AG Board. ”It is not … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

MAY 2009 SILAG Han­del AG reports new record sales of +34% in the latest busi­ness report for 2008. Thus the tra­ding com­pa­ny based in Lan­gen­feld has again suc­cee­ded in excee­ding the sales results of the very suc­cess­ful busi­ness year of 2007. This can be inter­pre­ted as a clear indi­ca­tor of the suc­cess of SILAG Han­del AG’s pro­fes­sio­nal remnant-inventory manage­ment. An incre­a­sing num­ber of com­pa­nies in indus­try and tra­de are using the new sales poten­ti­al for dis­po­sing of sur­plus goods and are ther­eby achie­ving signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ments in results. The 47 year-old com­pa­ny foun­der Sieg­fried Lapa­wa proud­ly reports that the credit wort­hi­ness of SILAG Han­del AG has been con­fir­med for the ninth time in suc­ces­si­on by the … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

May 2009 The “FLORIAN” has been wel­co­m­ing all guests sin­ce the 2^nd April. The café with the cha­rac­ter of a lounge and bis­tro is an inte­gral part of the popu­lar four-star “Grä­f­ra­ther Hof” hotel and is also open to visi­tors who are not resi­dent in the “main house” on the Grä­f­rath Mar­ket Squa­re. The “FLORIAN” is a suc­cess­ful fusi­on of café, bis­tro and lounge for tho­se who value extra­or­di­na­ry cui­sine, high-quality drinks and a rela­xed atmo­s­phe­re. After all, no less a per­son than the famous TV chef Patrick Jabs gives the orders from behind the ovens in the “FLORIAN’s” kit­chen, deligh­t­ing gour­mets in Solin­gen and the sur­roun­ding area with inno­va­ti­ve culi­na­ry … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

APRIL 2009 The inten­si­ve efforts by SILAG Han­del AG with the City of Solin­gen to keep the tra­di­tio­nal base of “Wup­per­ta­ler Str. 342” came to not­hing. ”It pains me to have to give up what has been for us a his­to­ric base after more than 15 years”, said Board Spo­kes­man S. Lapa­wa of the sad result of the pro­tra­c­ted nego­tia­ti­ons. ”SILAG Han­del AG has felt its­elf firm­ly bound to Solin­gen sin­ce 1985. The “Wup­per­ta­ler Str. 342” com­plex, used at one time as a pro­duc­tion site, later as head­quar­ters and sin­ce 1994 suc­cess­ful­ly as a wareh­ousing and sales space, grew along with us and Solin­gen“, said Lapa­wa. Retail Asso­cia­ti­ons and the Cham­ber of Indus­try and Com­mer­ce fought against the … Con­ti­nue rea­ding →

Janu­a­ry 2009 Wolf­ram Stroese was appoin­ted to the exe­cu­ti­ve board of SILAG Han­del AG star­ting 02.01.2009. Stroese, who came from a simi­lar role in Obi, is regar­ded as an expert in the sec­tor and will lead the new­ly crea­ted “New Busi­ness Are­as and Mar­ke­ting” depart­ment. The lea­ders­hip team of Board Spo­kes­man Sieg­fried Lapa­wa, Board Mem­ber Tho­mas Becker and Board Mem­ber Hans-Hermann Lapa­wa is thus exten­ded from three to four mem­bers. Mr. Sieg­fried Lapa­wa sees this gain as an important step towards the pro­fi­ta­ble growth of the Group of Com­pa­nies.