Shoe openings

The shoe chain, owned by ex-co-owners of Lenta hypermarkets, will open 10 stores in St. Petersburg In June, the Obuv.com federal chain of stores will open a second store in St. Petersburg in the Rio shopping and entertainment center, the first already operating in the June shopping center. They will be supplemented by at least 10 points throughout the city. This was told by Alexander Krepkikh, Lead Development Manager of Obuv Kom company. The federal chain of multi-brand footwear stores, which since 2010 has opened more than 60 outlets throughout Russia, is 40% owned by Dmitry Kostygin and August Meyer, former co-owners of the Lenta hypermarket chain in St. Petersburg. The businessmen acquired a share in Obuv.com this spring for $ 25 million. Dmitry Kostygin explains his decision to invest in shops of cheap shoes as follows: “I did not choose the shoe business, but a specific partner - this is Kirill Yavorovsky, a new generation entrepreneur.” According to SPARK-Interfax, Kirill Yavorovsky is a co-owner of Obuv Kom LLC, and in addition to the shoe business, he also owns RT-Management CJSC. Dmitry Kostygin admitted that, together with his partner, he is ready to invest in the optimal growth of the Obuv.com network up to $ 100 million. It is planned that by the end of 2012 the Obuv.com network will double to 120 stores throughout Russia, including through stores opened on franchising. According to Obuv Kom, franchise stores now account for 10% of the chain. In development, priority is given to premises in large shopping centers, but we are also ready to open stores in street retail near the metro, says Alexander Krepkikh. The retail space of the stores is 150-300 m2, the average investment in the launch of one point is 4 million rubles, the payback is a year. To take a strong position in the St. Petersburg market, the new chain needs to make significant efforts, since the competition has increased, and there are few suitable premises, experts warn. Petersburg is in second place after Moscow in terms of saturation with shoe networks. Over the past 3 years, federal footwear chains have been actively increasing their presence here, while local players have long and firmly established themselves in the market, comments Natalya Pauli, Deputy Director of Public Relations of Obuv Rossii company (brands Westfalika, Pedestrian ). In the economy segment, the leader is the company "CenterObuv". Also, the ten largest shoe chains include Monroe, Unicel, Obuv Rossii, Respect, Econika. In general, the footwear market in Russia is growing by 10-12% per year. The development of new networks is hampered by the traditionally difficult situation with real estate. In the shopping malls of St. Petersburg, the supply of space suitable for a shoe store is extremely limited, which is not yet widely represented in the city. Writes about this dp.ru