This year, the company Rox, a regional leader in the distribution of car cosmetics and equipment, marks thirty years of operation. Its founder and owner, Ivo Krištić, describes, among other things, how he transformed gas stations into top destinations where people feel happy.
How would you assess your company’s performance in the last two pandemic years?
– Rox has multiple activities, so some of them felt the consequences of the pandemic, while others performed even better than I expected. Listening to the market, we adapted and sold masks and protective equipment, but we also invested a lot of effort together with our employees to ensure that the company operated successfully during the pandemic.
How many business entities do you own and where are they located?
– We own five gas stations and five wholesale businesses. The gas stations are in Modriča, Orašje, Šamcu, and in Zagreb, these two at the entrance and exit of the metropolis. The wholesale businesses are in Zagreb, Ljubljana, Belgrade, Pristina, and Orašje, which are doing quite well and successfully. We employ over 200 employees, and 2,000 items, with more than 70 well-known brands, are distributed through three distribution centers to 12,000 sales points. The product categories we cover are food, non-food, and the beauty category, which is a young and promising project that has been developing for the last four years and is recording growth in business year after year.
We could say that you have somehow enhanced the offer of gas stations with your Rox on Slavonska, which, in addition to the classic ‘gas station’, also offers an excellent menu and atmosphere. How did you decide to offer top dishes at a gas station, as well as other amenities? What can be done at Rox?
– It all depends on the location. I made a wine cellar in Modriča, and no one believed in that project. At the gas station, we made rooms; no one believed that someone would sleep there, we created a closed lounge bar; no one believed that someone would come there to celebrate a birthday or have meetings. Everything has come to life. I did the same in Šamac. In Šamac, a wine cellar and wine bar have come to life. People feel comfortable, safe, and stable when they see that someone has invested in their place, in their city, and cares about people. Without investment, you cannot attract guests, and you cannot make guests happy. For all major businesses and atmospheres for guests, there must be investment, there must be a good project, there must be expensive materials. That’s how the idea for the gas station on Slavonska Avenue came to me. This is the first gas station in history with a charcoal grill and a mirror above the generator. It costs a lot, but I accepted that risk, and in the end, it turned out well and successfully, and all the people who come are happy and satisfied. They take pictures under the awning above the mirror, eat charcoal grill, and I watch how happy people are. And that was our goal, to make people happy and satisfied with the offer. When I feel a happy and satisfied guest, then I am happy and satisfied too, even happier than they are.
