Dan-Virgil Pascu, Competition Council: “Retail is developing in two directions: proximity and digital commerce”

“Customers have started looking for proximity stores. From our perspective, retail is developing in two directions: proximity and digital commerce. A few years ago, shopping in Romania was done in hypermarkets, but in the meantime, we are observing a very strong development of supermarket chains. Even hypermarkets have started to open proximity stores,” Dan-Virgil Pascu, vice-president, Competition Council said at Retail Forward 2025 organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

Key statements:

• I would like to recall the entry into the Romanian market of the Żabka* group from Poland through the froo brand. They have developed explosively during the pandemic and have a network of over 11,000 proximity stores in Poland, meaning that 13 million Poles have a Żabka store less than 500 meters away.
• Digitalization and moving businesses online are trends that we are seeing in Romania.
• I think that we will not see a transaction like Mega Image-Profi again soon in Romania, if we refer to the transaction value of over one billion euros. I don’t know if such a transaction will happen in the near future, but we see on the market that the current players continue to develop their supermarket networks.
• At the European level, there is a trend that shows that competition authorities should support the business environment more in order to achieve sustainability objectives. Companies can cooperate horizontally if some sustainability objectives are achieved, according to an opinion of the European Commission. The Commission wants competition authorities to support the business environment more in order to cooperate horizontally in order to achieve those objectives.

*Żabka Group, European convenience ecosystem, has launched its expansion into the Romanian market with the new froo brand. Exorigo-Upos, with whom the company has worked for many years on the Polish market, was chosen as the implementation partner. The froo stores are modeled on their Polish counterparts.

The IT work carried out by Exorigo-Upos for froo – a chain of modern convenience stores in Romania – started in February 2024 and lasted four months. The process involved many people working daily in the Romanian branch and a team of specialists from Poland.

In Poland, Żabka Group has over 11 000 stores under Żabka brand, as well as Nano autonomous stores, q-commerce, e-commerce services and diet catering.

Exorigo-Upos has a nationwide IT and equipment service with 400 employees and a network of 22 service offices. It provides support services in more than a dozen countries across Europe. It has offices in Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and works with a network of partners. It is also a manufacturer of fiscal printers and a developer of software, including point-of-sale systems and solutions for fiscalisation, e-invoicing and e-payment.