Fix Price has announced the opening of its first store in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on Sakhalin Island, extending its presence in Russia's Far East.
The opening, which is the chain's 4,835th, means that the variety value retailer now has a presence in 79 of Russia's 85 regions, covering some 98% of the population.
Sakhalin Island is located just north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, and boasts a population of around 200,000 inhabitants.
Fix Price, which reported a 4.4% increase in sales in its third quarter, said in a statement that the new outlet in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk will boast around 1,800 SKUs, and feature 300 square metres of sales space. The store will be serviced from the company's distribution centre in Pushkino in the Moscow region, with sea, rail and road transport used to deliver goods.
First Store On Sakhalin
"We are pleased to be strengthening Fix Price's presence in the Far East with the opening of our first store on Sakhalin," commented Vladimir Pogonin, acting director of sales and director of real estate at Fix Price.
"To ensure that there is no disruption to availability of goods, we have significantly increased the warehouse size from our standard 50 square metres to more than 100 square metres, to house a larger stock of goods."
As well as Sakhalin, the group also operates stores in Buryatia, Yakutia, the Amur Region, as well as the Trans-Baikal, Primorsky, Khabarovsk and Kamchatka Territories. It boasts a total of 74 stores in Russia's Far East.
"Despite the challenging logistics in the Far East, we intend to continue developing in the region with an unwavering focus on efficiency – we only open new locations in the region if their expected profitability is comparable to our average," Pogonin added.
In June, Fix Price hit the 4,500-store mark, with the milestone opening located in Saint Petersburg.
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. For more Retail news, click here. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
