Beauty Alliance Deutschland is effective from 1 July 2004, and will provide for a chain of more than 900 outlets, according to future joint managing director Reiner Metz, as reported in Financial Times Deutschland.
The new alliance will be formed by the two of Germanies current perfume retail alliances, Stuttgart-based Intercos, and Bielefeld-based Parma-Aurel.
Businesses participating in the new alliance are expected to combine their purchasing power and co-operate in marketing.
As reported in a recent CosmeticsDesign.com article, Germany has the largest specialist health and beauty sector by some margin, accounting for over 30 per cent of specialist sales generated by the six European countries researched for a report published recently by market research company Mintel.
Mintel's Jenny Catlin said: "Despite the well documented problems of the German economy in the past five years, the health and beauty sector has outperformed the average collective growth of the six markets covered between 1999 and 2003."
The German cosmetics and toiletries market is booming. Last year it was Western Europe's largest health and beauty market, worth almost €40 billion. This is compared to €31 billion in France, €19 billion in the UK, €17 billion in Italy and €16 billion in Spain.
But while Germany is Europe's largest economy and most populous market, as its health and beauty industry market has grown, it has also remained a competitive marketplace.
Beauty Alliance Deutschland has been formed at a time when German drugstore chain Schlecker has faced pressure in its domestic market and has drawn up plans to expand in its existing external markets and move into Eastern European countries.
The new perfumeries alliance is part of a wider Beauty Alliance network of fragrance retailers throughout Europe, including French perfumeries Beauty Success, which has nearly 180 outlets across France, the Italian chain Ethos Profumerie, with its 160 perfume stores, and InterCos subsidiaries in Austria and Switzerland, each with fewer than 100 doors.