Russian retailer Lenta saw its like-for-like sales rise by 6.1% in the first quarter of its financial year, compared to the same period last year.
Total sales for the Russian hypemarket operator were up 19.9% to RUB 93.4 billion (€1.34 billion) for the period, compared to RUB 77.9 billion for the same period last year.
New Openings
It opened one new hypermarket and nine new supermarkets in the period, with its total store count reaching 338 stores as of 31 March 2018, comprising 232 hypermarkets and 106 supermarkets.
“Customers reacted positively to changes in our offering, range, marketing and communication by buying more volume and more expensive articles, which led to the strongest trading up since 2013,” commented Lenta’s chief executive officer, Jan Dunning.
“The reported quarter was still challenging for the sector - we continued to see pressure from deflation in the quarter, while Lenta managed to overcompensate that by better basket quality.
"Quarterly results were also affected by worse weather conditions in February in many of the Russian regions. Performance in March was the strongest in the quarter.”
Kesko Outlets
Dunning added that the group was pleased with the first ‘ramp-up’ of former Kesko outlets in St . Petersburg, which are “delivering very strong double-digit LFL sales growth during second year of operation”. In addition, the former Nash hypermarkets are also “running ahead of our original expectations”.
During the period, Lenta launched a series of initiatives in order to differentiate its offer, including changes in assortment (including introduction of new private label product ranges), marketing, Lenta’s loyalty program and customer communication.
Tailored Offers
It enhanced its digital marketing activities with special offers tailored on an individual basis, in order to enhance traffic and basket size, it added, with the number of active loyalty cardholders increasing to 13 million and the share of transactions made with the loyalty card at the ‘historically high’ level of 96%.
It also announced its continued focus on expanding in the Moscow region, which it entered in 2013. The group now operates 24 hypermarkets and 45 supermarkets in the region, representing 12.2% of Lenta’s total selling space, and 14.1% of its sales.
Lenta plans to open about 20 new hypermarkets and 50 new supermarkets in 2018, as part of its organic expansion.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
