Retail chain

Perekrestok To Drastically Change Appearance

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The network of chain stores Perekrestok is getting a new look, as reported by Vedomosti, quoting Janusz Lella, the general director of the company.

Lella said, according to the publication, that the need to change the way the company appeals to consumers came about because of its low financial performance.

In the future, Perekrestok is looking at changing the use of its staff, changing its logo and revising its pricing policy.

“The supermarkets are changing their logo and color scheme, reorganizing their assortment, it will be newly organized as well as the retail space in the stores, in addition to a revised personnel policy,” he said.

During the first quarter of this year, the network reached a revenue of 28.7 billion rubles ( about $833 million ), and the group of companies reached 144 billion rubles ( about $4,18 billion ). Perekrestok’s growth performance was at 4.4 percent.

“We deliver suppliers more. The growth of the purchase amount is due to buying more goods, therefore sometimes even lowering prices gives rise to an average bill,” he said.

From January to March of this year, the average customer check at Perekrestok amounted to 433.8 rubles ( about $13 ).

www.fruitnews.info

Azbuka Vkusa adds a new format

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The retailer Azbuka Vkusa announced launching new format of supermarkets – AV Market. As it has been known from Vedomosti newspaper Andrey Tkemaladze is going to be a director of the new chain of supermarkets.

According to the top manager, 5 hypermarkets, which Azbuka Vkusa gets as result of a deal with Spar, are going to be rebranded by the end of the year. Complimentary to rebranded Spar hypermarkets this year another 5 new hypermarkets will be opened: 3 – in Moscow, 2 – in Moscow region. The retailer is planning to open not less than 5 new AV Market hypermarkets per year.

When developing this new format supermarkets Azbuka Vkusa was deeply learning a background of USA supermarket networks such as Wegmans, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s.

Target market of AV Market is going to be wider than usual Azbuka Vkusa has. The retailer wants to carry out a new format – a market inside a store, where customers can bargain and get a discount depending on goods’ amount.
An average bill will be around 1000 Rubles and that is 1.5 lower than in usual Azbuka Vkusa supermarkets, but higher than in other super- and hypermarkets.

A product assortment is going to consist of 15,000-20,000 names. Groceries will take 10-15% of the whole amount of product assortment. A share of fresh products will take 50% of whole assortment. It is planned to create few in-store cafes, but it will depend on store square.

AV Market is going to be an anchor renter in shopping malls: minimal selling area of AV Market will take 2000 square meters, maximal – up to 10,000 square meters.

www.retailer.ru

Russia: imported product prices increase by 15-20%

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Higher School of Economics (HSE) warns about a soon price increase on imported goods as well as on goods produced with imported raw materials. All details are reflected in a report called “About business climate condition in retail sector in first quarter of 2014…”.

“Retailers are expecting a further weakening of ruble. Imported goods which were bought at earlier exchange rates hold out only few more months”, – Georgy Ostapkovich, the author of the report and the director of HSE Centre of Market research, explained his predictions in the interview to RBC Daily.

Retailers are now seeking for a possibility to substitute imported products to domestic ones to neutralize the price increase.
By HSE estimates, Russia is strongly depending on imports: in average 33% of goods sold through both networked and non-networked retailers are imported. Moreover, the share of imported goods is pretty stable during the last few years, as Georgy Ostapkovich added. That means the prices on goods which can’t be replaced by domestic equivalents will increase by the end of the second quarter of 2014.

Ruble has started to weaken since the middle of February 2014, but expected price increase has not been recorded by Rosstat yet. A main rule for suppliers is that a supplier must inform a retailer about release price increase in a period of 30 days.

In fact, the price raising is step by step overtaking retail networks. For example, in “Dixie” a price increase on foreign fruit and vegetables is about 10-25%, on dairy products – 7-15%, sugar – about 8%. Meat products suppliers are going to raise prices by 10% or even more.

In “O’kay” a general price increase of 15-20% is detected. Retail prices on fish have grown up by 20%, on chocolate and nuts – by about 15%. The price increase on dairy products is the same as in “Dixie” – about 15%.
Furthermore, release prices on non-food range of products are also rising by 10%. Especially prices on cloths (90% of imported items), household appliances (80% of imported items), sport goods, office supplies and toys (70 % of imported items) are growing up dramatically.

According to Rosstat, the inflation in March was 1%, since the beginning of 2014 – 2.3%.

www.newsru.com

31% increase in Lenta’s sales in 2013

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Lenta, one of the major Russian grocery retailers, increased its total sales by 31.3% year on year to RUB 144.3bn (€3.03bn) in 2013, according to the company’s IFRS financial report. At the same time, the LFL sales grew by 10%.

What is more, there was a 35% increase in the retail space of the Russian hypermarket retailer Lenta in 2013, and the company has become the most rapidly growing business in this arena among the largest grocery retailers in Russia.

At the end of last year Lenta’s retail space came to 508,000 m² and the company had 87 stores in total. The retailer has opened 31 stores, including 10 supermarkets in Moscow and the Moscow Province. It operates 77 hypermarkets in 45 cities in Russia.

Lenta’s main shareholders are the American investment fund TPG (49.8%), the EBRD (21.5%) and VTB Capital (11.7%). In early February the retailer announced that it intended to enter the London Stock Exchange and the Moscow Exchange by means of IPOs.

www.ceeretail.com

New Lenta store in Perm

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Saint Petersburg retailer Lenta has opened its new store in Perm on December 25, has said Yana Mogileva, a press agent of the retailer.

Initially the opening of the store was postponed several times due to technical problems.

As far as future plans are concerned, the retailer doesn’t plan to open new stores in Perm prior to 2015.

Today Lenta is present in 44 cities of Russia. The official website of the company states that Lenta stores are opened seven days a week. Also, the retailer offers to its customers products at a price not less than 5% below the average market price. It’s specified that Lenta reduces its costs of warehouse storage by placing some of its commodity stocks in salesrooms.

www.retailer.ru

Azbuka Vkusa will buy SVA Trading

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Moscow premium retailer “Azbuka Vkusa” will close a deal and buy the company “SVA Trading” (owned by Sergei Inozemtsev and his partners) in February 2014. Right now “SVA Trading” is a business owned by “SPAR”.

Early last week, “Azbuka Vkusa” has received an approval from the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia to purchase eight “SPAR” stores, a warehouse and manufacturing facilities. The total shopping floor space of the stores accounts for 10.1 thousand square meters. However, the company doesn’t hurry to make a purchase. “In December, during the peak season, the absorption of another business can be too much for the company,” – said a top-manager of the company.

Right now the deal value is undisclosed. Earlier it was stated that “SVA Trading” assets were worth $ 85-105 million.

“Azbuka Vkusa” plans to operate “SVA Trading” stores under its own brand within 3 months after the deal is closed.

In 2014 “Azbuka Vkusa” will expand its chain of stores by at least 20 new joints (including eight “SVA Trading” stores). The opening is planned to be conducted in Moscow, Moscow Region and St. Petersburg.

www.retailer.ru

Court upholds Metro debt recovery

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The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals has confirmed the lawfulness of the court decision to recover 27.1 million rubles ($850,860) in debt from Metro Cash & Carry.

Earlier, Metro Cash & Carry filed an appeal against the Moscow Commercial Courts January 25 decision partially satisfying Icebit’s lawsuit to recover the initially claimed 75 million rubles ($2.35 million) from the company.

The court found that Icebit supplied goods to the defendant from 2009 to 2011 amounting to 82.4 million rubles ($2.58 million).

The defendant’s receipt of the goods is confirmed in the consignment notes, according to the court. The parties do not dispute the nature or the amount of the supplies.

The defendant has already transferred 43.9 million rubles ($1.37 million) to the plaintiff. The court decision reads that the rendered services and the cost of the returned goods subject to recovery amount to 27.1 million rubles ($850,860). The defendant confirmed its debt of 27.1 million rubles. However, as for the other claims in the case, it considers the lawsuit to be groundless.

It also asked the court to refuse to demand interest from the company.

Metro Cash & Carry said the plaintiff has not provided evidence that it sent invoices to it.

Source: www.freshplaza.com

Now there are ten Prismas in St. Petersburg

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16 August 2012 Finnish corporation SOK opened the tenth supermarket Prisma in St. Petersburg. A supermarket is situated in the building of a subway station “International” which now is under construction.

“The close location to the metro station and highways will be the undisputed advantage of this object, – commented Vesa Punnonen, president of SOK Retail Int. – Also, Prisma is located close to densely populated residential area with insufficient infrastructure of grocery stores. ”

“Until the end of January 2013, we plan to open four new supermarkets, three of them hypermarket format. In the future there will be a network of 20-30 supermarkets”- Vesa Punnonen added.

The chain of supermarkets and hypermarkets Prisma is owned by the Finnish Holding S-Group. In St. Petersburg Corporation SOK (part of the S-Group), besides retail supermarkets Prisma, owns three hotels – spa-hotel Sokos Hotel Palace Bridge, Sokos Hotel Vasilievsky and Sokos Hotel Olympic Garden.

Source: www.retailer.ru