Blood brothers
The situation with a decrease in the availability of foreign tours and an increase in the cost of summer holidays has led to the fact that there is almost no seasonal collapse in traffic in large shopping centers. This is facilitated by the activity of the owners of the shopping center in the form of special promotions and events. At the same time, a significant decline occurred in regional centers, where a large amount of space was occupied by the share of Western retailers who left the market.
Culinary school
According to the data from an information agency INFOLine, in 2021, one hundred biggest chains amassed 50.6% of the market, while a year ago their share was 43.8%, with the top ten largest retailers taking 38%. This situation is nothing new for the west: in the USA, for example, five chains have 47% and in Germany even 73% of the markets respectively.
Due to the ever-growing share of federal chains, regional ones are forced to leave the market or agree to be taken over by larger competitors. There is one more way out, that is changing the concept and the range of goods. A lot of chains in the regions count on their unique produce and prefer to focus on meeting demands of a small, but loyal pool of fans rather than chasing an average customer.
One good example is a small supermarket chain in Astrakhan called Mikhailovsky. Their shops, which are a local version of Azbuka Vkusa, failed to compete with federal chains in terms of the range of goods, especially with the chains sharply increasing their number in the past two years. Last year residents of Astrakhan noticed empty and dismantled equipment in Mikhailovsky supermarkets. Local mass media suggested they could be shutting down completely. However, the owners made a different decision: they wanted to focus on their own produce by cutting the rest of the goods to bare minimum.
How regional supermarket chains survive