Stores up to 500 sq. meters will open in Russian cities with a population of up to 100 thousand people
Sportmaster will come to small towns
Sports retailer Sportmaster intends to enter cities with a population of up to 100,000 people. Only the most popular goods will be sold in small stores, where you can also order everything that is presented on the site. The format created specifically for small settlements will allow it to compete with marketplaces, Sergey Agibalov, the group's business manager, told RBC.
“To the standard chain stores with an area of 1.2-2.5 thousand square meters. m and hypermarkets Sportmaster PRO with an area of up to 5 thousand square meters. m will add points with a space of 300-500 sq. m. Test stores of this format have already been opened in Alexandrov, Vladimir Region, Kirishi, Leningrad Region, and Budennovsk, Stavropol Territory. The initial results of the work were recognized as successful, and at the moment the retailer is finalizing this format,” Agibalov said.
In total, according to him, the group plans to open about 50 stores under the Sportmaster brand in 2022, 30 of them will be small format. In general, about 300 small towns of the Russian Federation are of interest to the group.
The Sportmaster group was founded in 1992 by brothers Nikolai and Vladimir Fartushnyak and Dmitry Doykhen. Its sales network now includes over 450 stores in 220 cities.
Earlier, Expert wrote that in April 2020, after the introduction of the self-isolation regime, Sportmaster was forced to close 314 outlets. Over 14,000 employees were threatened with dismissal without severance pay, some of them got jobs in call centers for online maintenance, the rest were sent on vacation with partial payments. Manager Sergey Agibalov then promptly reacted to the news of mass layoffs, stating that this is not the point, but rather the effective use of the labor resource of employees for the period of forced downtime.