Cora, the French chain that owns the biggest hypermarkets on theRomanian market, has resumed expansion this year, betting on astrategy similar to Carrefour's: smaller stores and partnershipswith shopping centre developers. The retailer announces a target of10 new stores over the next four years.
The company will open two 4,500 square-metre hypermarkets in BaiaMare and Constanţa in the last quarter of the year following aninvestment of 5 million euros per store.The resizing of the storeformat could allow the retailer that brought the biggesthypermarket (15,000 square metres) onto the Romanian market to tapinto medium-sized Romanian cities with less competition, as well asto increase sales per square metre."Tapping into cities with lessthan 200,000-300,000 inhabitants is an opportunity to test this newhypermarket format. We plan to open ten new stores over the nextfour years, but not necessarily stores with smaller sales areas, asis the case of the Gold Plaza Baia Mare and Constanţa City Parkstores," said Philippe Lejeune, general manager of Cora Romania. Headded that the opening of stores that are 2-3 times smaller thanthe chain's average store size has been dictated by theavailability of retail space on the market.
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