The Russian food chain MERE, if the announcements from the media can be trusted, is entering the Serbian retail market.
MERE is an affiliate of the Russian Torgservis Group, founded in 2009, which currently operates in more than 800 locations across Russia under the Svetofor brand and is the third largest chain behind the trading companies X5 and Magnit.
Mere started doing business in Germany in January 2019, but due to high demand and a shortage of goods in stock, it was forced to temporarily close his stores.
The Mere chain has stores in Kazakhstan, Belarus, China, but also in our neighboring Romania. As they state, the advantages of buying in their markets are the prices 20 percent lower than the market ones, and the buyers “pay for the goods, not the brand”.
“Svetofor network customers are usually people who want to save time and money. Many of them are middle- and lower-income families who carefully plan their purchases and visit the store once or twice a week,” they say.
Zarko Grozdanić\c, editor of the Retail Serbia portal, states for B92.net that the Torgservis group has started large international operations by opening discount stores under the MERE brand in several European countries.
“In Serbia, MERE was founded at the beginning of the year and is in the initial phase of business, which means that consumers in Serbia will have to wait a while for the opening of the first stores. The company probably plans to open 100 stores in Serbia in the next few years. In Serbia, next to Lidl, which is slowly moving to the classic format of a supermarket, there is no larger domestic discount chain of stores and this is the space that the Russian company wants to use in our market,” says Grozdanic.
According to him, the arrival of the Russian discounter will be a refreshment, both for consumers and for Serbian producers who have not been able to market their products to a greater extent so far. Measurement facilities are very modest, but that should not worry consumers, if they get the same quality at a lower price.
He adds that it is important to point out that products from Serbia are already on the shelves of the MERE market. The arrival of the Russian chain should certainly be used by other producers, which would affect the greater growth of the Serbian economy.
The MERE market also offers non-food products, so sellers of toys and home decoration items in Serbia will get a serious competitor, B92 reports.
