Jelmoli Zürich, CH
In June 1833 Johann Peter Jelmoli-Ciolina from Tocano, an Italian village in the Vigezzo valley, arrived in Zurich to attend the annual Hirschengraben fair. Before the end of the year he received his Zurich residence permit and established the city’s first fashion house on the Schipfe. Only one year later in 1834, Jelmoli was the first to offer fixed prices both for town and country customers. As another innovation, samples and deliveries were sent to customers in cardboard boxes – a new development in those days. That laid the foundations for modern retail trade and mail order business. Already in the 1880’s Ciolina’s heirs decided to expand their business according to the Paris fashion house model. The mail order business also developed successfully, and in 1897 a comprehensive catalogue was published for the first time. After transforming Jelmoli into a limited company, Zurich’s first modern department store took shape between 1898 and 1899 on the former Seidenhöfe silk factories site. When this famous Glass Palace (following Paris examples) was opened, Jelmoli had 72 employees and the expansion period started with the Zurich flagship store extensions in 1931-38, continuing in 1947 and 1958-61. Then the “Innovation” and “Au Grand Passage” department store chains were acquired. This was followed in 1954 by the opening of the first branch store in Oerlikon, at that time a Zurich suburb. Subsequently the Jelmoli chain grew to more than 50 department stores throughout Switzerland. In the eighties, Imholz Travel was acquired and integrated into the Jelmoli travel agency network. To ensure a solid basis for future development, a holding structure was created in 1994 by founding Jelmoli Holding Ltd. In the same year Walter Fust, founder of Dipl. Ing. Fust AG, sold his company to Jelmoli Holding Ltd. This made Switzerland’s leading speciality store chain for domestic appliances a 100% subsidiary of the Jelmoli Group. Only two years later, however, Walter Fust bought back his company by acquiring a majority of shares in Jelmoli Holding AG. In 1997, he became president of the board of directors. Jelmoli then concentrated its department store business at the Zurich flagship store on Bahnhofstrasse, and for the mail order business went into partnership with Heine, Germany. Over the next few years Jelmoli Zurich was transformed into “The House of Brands”. Thanks to a successful shop-in-shop concept with unique brand variety, this turned Switzerland’s largest department store with the biggest turnover into a city-centre shopping gallery par excellence. The Jelmoli Zurich sales floors were extended in 1999 and a direct access to the Jelmoli parking garage was created in the basement. In 2004 the Jelmoli Zurich courtyard was converted, and basement delivery access was created. Walter Fust sold most of his Jelmoli shares in spring 2003 and Georg von Opel acquired the Jelmoli voting share majority via his company Pelham Investments SA. In 2009, Jelmoli was acquired by Swiss Prime Site, Switzerlandd’s leading listed real estate agency. In 2020, Jelmoli expanded to Zurich Airport, opening three new stores there. (excerpt from Jelmoliholdig.ch)
