ARCOS: THE DRIVERS BEHIND ITS SUCCESS IN FRANCE

Training sales teams, developing sales support tools, adapting collections to consumer expectations, strengthening brand awareness… At Arcos, supporting distributors is an integral part of its development strategy. Jérôme Brutus, the new director of the French subsidiary, shares his vision of support based on expertise, close contact with the market and the brand’s capacity for innovation.

Faced with increasingly well-informed consumers, specialist stores retain one major advantage: advice. Arcos has made this one of the pillars of its strategy. The sales teams therefore devote a significant part of their work to training sales staff. The aim is to provide them with in-depth product knowledge so that they can respond precisely to their customers’ expectations. Today, this expertise represents genuine added value compared with online sales platforms. “While the Internet meets the need for an immediate purchase, specialist stores remain the place where consumers come for advice, compare products and receive personalised guidance,” Jérôme Brutus points out. For the director of the French subsidiary, a brand cannot simply offer excellent products. The sales teams do not come solely to present new products. They take the time to talk to retailers, identify initiatives that are proving successful and share best practices observed in the field. These discussions make it possible to adjust sales initiatives quickly and provide solutions that are increasingly well suited to retailers’ needs.

AN OFFERING THAT EVOLVES WITH MARKET EXPECTATIONS

Purchasing behaviour is changing, and Arcos is adapting its offering accordingly. Consumers now favour products that are durable, high-performing and affordable. They buy less impulsively and take more time to compare products before investing in quality equipment. The brand therefore embraces a positioning based on “accessible quality”. This approach is reflected in collections designed to meet the needs of different user profiles without compromising the performance for which Arcos is renowned. The new “Ibiza” and “Classic Pro” ranges are good examples. One is aimed at the general public, the other at professionals and hospitality schools, both offering excellent value for money. The brand is also adapting certain formats to make its products more accessible, as illustrated by steak knife sets now offered with four knives rather than six. The same approach can be seen in its knife blocks. Several ranges are available to suit all budgets. The most affordable models make it easier for a wider audience to equip their kitchens, while the more design-focused versions play an image-building role and showcase the brand’s capacity for innovation.

AN AGILE FRENCH SUBSIDIARY

Despite becoming an international group, Arcos has not lost its family dimension, a culture that its subsidiaries — starting with the French subsidiary — are committed to maintaining. Operating with the flexibility of a human-scale organisation, the French subsidiary maintains close ties with the market, an advantage that enables it to respond quickly to its partners’ expectations. The French teams have an excellent understanding of distributors’ expectations and quickly pass their observations on to the Spanish headquarters. This organisation enables the brand to adapt its collections, marketing initiatives or sales operations with great responsiveness, while benefiting from the group’s industrial strength.

BUILDING BRAND AWARENESS TO SUPPORT SALES

Jérôme Brutus is convinced that product quality alone is not enough to guarantee success. Consumers must also want to discover the product in stores. Arcos therefore invests in communication to strengthen its brand awareness and support the work carried out by its distributors. Digital communication, influencer marketing, events, partnerships, merchandising tools, point-of-sale advertising and in-store information materials all form part of an overall strategy designed to drive traffic to stores. The recent partnership with tennis champion Carlos Alcaraz’s academy is fully part of this dynamic. Communication and sales support therefore form two inseparable drivers of Arcos’s strategy. The former generates consumer interest and strengthens the brand’s visibility; the sales teams then support retailers in turning that interest into sales.

MORE THAN A KNIFE, A TOOL FOR SHARING

Beyond the technical characteristics of its products, Arcos promotes a vision of cutlery closely linked to the pleasures of cooking and dining. A knife is not an end in itself. It accompanies meal preparation, makes everyday tasks easier and contributes to moments of conviviality. This approach also guides the development of the collections. Behind every new product, the brand’s primary aim is to offer useful, durable and pleasant-to-use products that can accompany consumers for many years.

Source: Home Fashion News #62 – Sept 2026 / Translation: Leila Ahmad