• For money … to the store
• Merezha provides EBRD services are affordable
• What are the benefits to us from the global economic crisis
• How Hettich suggests hiding a kitchen
• Alibaba sells furniture in its own way – cashless

Everything that happened last week in Ukraine and the world and is relevant for the furniture maker, read in our digest:

1. The National Bank plans to allow stores to issue cash to bank card holders directly through the cash desks of stores. The draft of such a decision of the NBU has now been submitted for public discussion.
According to economists, cashing out money through shops can be useful for the entire Ukrainian economy. For example, the accompanying note to the draft NBU resolution states that the proposed changes “will help reduce the shadow economy, further develop the cashless segment and create economic prerequisites for the functioning and development of a competitive environment in the financial and banking services market”.

2. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Union, in agreement with the Ukrainian government, launched a digital platform to support Ukrainian small and medium enterprises Merezha as part of the EU4Business initiative to expand business development opportunities.
“Ukrainian companies will be able to register online and get instant access to registered experts (there are 23 now), case studies, a library of business solutions and other useful data that are necessary for planning and developing their activities,” the EBRD website reports.
In the future, the Merezha online platform plans to open access to data on the state of small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine, to create a business culture, increase the number of trusted, reliable experts and increase the overall level of consulting.

3. The Ministry of Finance of Ukraine takes into account in its forecasts the risks of the global economic crisis, which could lower prices for the main positions of Ukrainian exports. This was stated by the head of the department Oksana Markarova.
“On the one hand, a slowdown in the world economy will cause a fall in prices for Ukrainian export positions, on the other hand, capital, when the economy slows down, is looking for where to go, where to earn. And we have a great opportunity to attract investment, ”the minister said.

4. The kitchen today is no longer just a place where they just cook food, but a room where all family members gather and spend time together in a comfortable environment. The stable trend of recent years is the unification of the kitchen with other residential areas of the house or apartment, and in this case, the kitchen turns into a stylish space with well-thought-out ergonomics, a modern design and a high level of comfort. But can it be done so that the kitchen is hidden, so that the facades seem to combine with other furniture in the apartment and create a single furniture composition? Hettich responds with confidence that it is possible! And such an example of a kitchen set has already been presented to the market. The kitchen equipped with the Wing 77 system looks like an ordinary closet, but just pull the handle a little and the massive doors quietly and easily fold into an “accordion” – and we see a full-fledged kitchen with plenty of storage space, a refrigerator and a dishwasher.

5. 2017, Alibaba opened its first Home Times special format furniture store in Hangzhou. For the Chinese online retailer, the Home Times was the second project to implement the concept of “new retail” by the founder of the company, Ma Yun, which is the merger of offline, online retail and logistics.
On each product in this store, the buyer can find an electronic price tag with a QR code, by scanning which, you can get complete information about the properties of the product and compare with similar products on the Taobao electronic platform (Chinese version of AliExpress) or TMall. By scanning the QR code, the buyer can also immediately buy the product he likes through the Alipay electronic payment system linked to the Alibaba account.
Due to the ability to pay for goods without “moving away from the shelf” and the lack of cash desks in the Home Times store, it acquires the features of unmanned stores, although it has staff, explains to the customers how the store works.