Cora, the hypermarket network held by French-Belgian group Louis Delhaize, posted 133 million-euro average sales per store last year, the highest in modern retail, according to Finance Ministry data. Each square metre generated about 10,000-euro sales in 2008, while rivals Carrefour and Real posted 7,000 to 9,000 euro/square metre sales, according to ZF's estimates based on the results reported by the companies.
Cora has been using a different strategy than Carrefour and Real, retailers which have aggressively expanded over the last few years, so that it only operates 3 hypermarkets at the moment, which makes it the smallest network by number of stores.
On the other hand, it relied on large sales areas and on the Bucharest market, so that the network average, 14,000 square metres per store, is twice higher than Carrefour's. The hypermarket in Militari district of Bucharest, Cora Lujerului, is the company's top performer and market sources say it is the top-performing hypermarket in Bucharest.
"The location is definitely the key-element in the strategy of the hypermarket network. Performance can also increase along with the surface area of the store, because more sales space allows for a more diverse selection of merchandise, which can attract more clients than a smaller hypermarket would," sources on the market stated.
Cora, Metro Cash & Carry and Auchan achieved the highest average sales per store in modern food retail, while discounter chains did not make it into the top ten, posting less than 5 million-euro sales per store in 2008.
Finance Ministry data reveal that the expansion of hypermarket chains to medium-sized cities like Braila, Oradea and Buzau drives down sales per store.
A hypermarket in Bucharest can generate as much as double the sales of a hypermarket outside the capital, market data reveal. The cities that can rival Bucharest in this department include Timisoara and Constanta, the same sources say.
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