Russia's Dixy Group has seen a 6% decline in revenue in its first quarter of the year, to RUB 70 billion, due to lower 'consumer traffic and basket weakness'.
Like-for-like sales at the group were down 9.8%, with gross profit amounting to RUB 17.6 billion.
The period saw 16 new stores opened and 89 stores closed 'to increase the efficiency of the portfolio', the retailer said. It increased its selling space by 2% compared to the same period the previous year.
Increased Competition
“The Russian food retail sales remained in the red zone in the first quarter and the retail industry had to address the continuing softness of the food consumption in Russia and to further improve the value proposition to customers," commented Dixy Group’s general director, Sergey Belyakov.
"The competition seemingly intensifies and the winning scenario is to offer to consumers the optimal combination of the best price, convenient location, variety of assortment, quality of products and servicing in their neighborhood while sustaining operational excellency."
In terms of boosting Dixy's sales going forward, Belyakov said that the group was seeing to bring more efficiency into its operations. "We worked a lot on the development of the strategic categories in our assortment while increasing the competitiveness of our price offer to customers," he commented. "We designed new promo policies, enhancing communications and improving shopping experience on the floor."
Dixy has also sought to increase the level of private label if offers in its stores, which currently account for 17% of sales.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
