After more than 20 years, GGT has become one of the leading trading companies in Slovakia. GGT has more than 10,000 square meters of warehouse space and more than 10,000 types of products. It is also the largest exclusive distributor of many of the world’s best-selling tobacco and supplementary products, including those of Japan Tobacco Inc.
Aside from tobacco products and complementary smoking products, GGT also sells food and nonfood products, office supplies, medical aids, gifts and decorative articles through a network of more than 640 company-operated convenience stores and kiosks, 14 regional partners and supermarket chains such as Tesco and Billa.
“Every day, we have around 300 vehicles on the road distributing products to nearly 7,000 sales points nationwide. We are also an importer for multinational companies that import products to Slovakia. Some of them only have administrative operations, so all of their logistics are handled by us,” GGT General Director Lubomir Baca said.
In the last five years, GGT has expanded not only its product range, but also its activities and business network. It merged with Valmont and JAS (now GGT CZ, a.s.) in the Czech Republic, where it is now the second-largest distribution firm and sales network.
It gradually expanded its activities by operating an extensive business-to-consumer (B2C) online shop, Fuego, supported by its own mail-order company DEPO with numerous conveniently located delivery points. For its B2C business, the company is well established in the field of selling tickets for various events through the Ticketmedia network.
GGT attributes its success to its commitment fair play even while it has clear dominance in Slovakia and can steer the market in its favor.
“As we reorganize our company, we are also introducing new technologies to make ordering easy for our networks and new services to our clients, like logistics capabilities for our online shops,” Baca said.
“Following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent visit to Slovakia and the implementation of the new free trade agreement between Japan and the EU, we have become the best partner in this part of the world to sell and distribute tobacco products,” he said.
