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The well-known luxury bag store Tlustý became even more famous last week. The owner of the company, Ivan Petrův, first emotionally turned to the customers to help save the handbag business from collapse with new orders. But the day after, he softened his words and wrote to one of the customers that “no one goes bankrupt”.
After a wave of solidarity that blocked the company’s e-shop on Wednesday, anger descended on the manufacturer of belts, wallets, handbags and other leather products. One of the customers who was disappointed by the behavior of the company boss on social networks is financial advisor Jan Darebný.
“I have a lot of belts, a wallet and other things from them, and I was thinking of ordering something else,” says Darebný. “But before I got to that, I found out what was going on. “Marketing can be done in other ways than demagoguery and actually lies, and that’s why I thought I’d rather support another honest pickpocket,” he adds.
Even Roman Tlusté, who founded the company and left it eight years ago, does not like the rescue campaign with a bad ending. “July and August are the worst months in our business, we all know that. But this? My father would punch him. But what about me, I’m alone,” he says.
The Czech Trade Inspection started to investigate the company due to suspicion of unfair business practices. “In the context of all the circumstances, the seller’s behavior could be assessed as an aggressive business practice consisting of a statement that if the consumer does not buy the product or service, it will endanger his business, workplace or existence,” said František Kotrba, the spokesman for the inspection.
According to Kotrba, the inspectorate received about ten requests to inspect Brašnářství Tlustý, which faces a fine of up to five million in the case of proven unfair practice. In such a case, customers could also withdraw from the contract they concluded with the company.
Owner: It was true
The owner of Brašnářství Tlustý Ivan Petrův did not want to talk to SZ Byznys. “You destroyed the company, you destroyed the reputation built up for eleven years. All the media picked it up and nobody cared if it was true or not,” he stated.
According to Petrův, the company was really in bad shape. “Wednesday’s call was deeply truthful and serious and was not a marketing ploy,” Petrův said on the company’s website. “Information […] they were taken out of context and were absurdly twisted and misused for the benefit of readership.’
According to Petrův, the information that the handbag industry is not actually going bankrupt appeared in the “depths of the Facebook swamp”. “I didn’t realize that one single comment would be ripped out and put into a completely fabricated context,” he says.
According to him, the orders that the e-shop managed to receive on Wednesday helped the company out of the worst. He did not want to answer the question whether customers canceled their orders again after that. “Now I want to work for our customers. The goal is not to fight the media, but to clear our name. I will prove that the situation was really serious,” says Petrův.
The company also withholds hundreds of thousands of crowns from orders to help Ukraine. The Post Bellum association had the company sew ballistic vests with money from a public collection. Then, through her, he applied for a refund of VAT, which he does not have to pay from the humanitarian collection. While the other companies with which Post Bellum cooperated in this way returned the money, Brašnářství Tlustý did not.
According to Diary N approximately 320,000 crowns were withheld from the company by the tax office to repay the debt, but the owner Ivan Petrův plans to return the money to the association. “Post Bellum is our shame, my shame,” Petrův told Deník N, saying that he will pay the owed amount from ordinary profit.
Will Brašnářství Tlustý survive?
The case also resonates among marketing experts. The company’s performance in recent days may threaten the trust of customers, but on the other hand, Brašnářství Tlustý has become probably the best-known manufacturer of leather haberdashery in the Czech Republic.
“In my opinion, it was not a completely thought-out step and intention. I almost think that it was a ‘quick super idea’ that looked like a quick way to sales during the holidays, but at Brašnářství Tlustý they didn’t really think through the consequences,” says Jan Makovička, head of marketing agency Taste.
“On the other hand, the trouble is not as it may appear in our marketing bubble. It will be interesting to see how the management of Brašnářství Tlustý will turn out this year and next,” adds Makovička.
