More than 200,000 visitors to Plaza Romania in Bucharest and an overflowing car park at the first Carrefour hypermarket in Brasov. This was the scene at the end of last week at two recently opened shopping centres, a phenomenon normally seen at Christmas or Easter.
"We had 80,000 visitors per day, that's 240,000 people over the three weekend days. We knew to expect many visitors," announced representatives of Anchor Grup, the company which invested 55 million euros in the opening of the largest mall-type shopping complex in Romania, Plaza Romania. By comparison, the groups other shopping complex, Bucuresti Mall, receives around 40,000 visitors every day. The opening of Plaza Romania did not affect business at Bucuresti Mall, which was "full, as usual", according to Anchor Grup officials.
The main catchment area for Plaza Romania covers neighbourhoods with a combined population of more than 500,000, 25% of the population of Bucharest. The complex covers an area of over 100,000 square metres, double Bucuresti Mall's 50,000 square metres.
While Anchor Grup saw visitor numbers coming close to its predictions, the opening week for the 20 million-euro investment in the first Carrefour hypermarket outside Bucharest outstripped all expectations.
"We were expecting a large number of customers and high sales, but results were far beyond our expectations. The hypermarket has not yet closed on time on any of day since opening (October 21) and this required an extension of opening hours," said Andreea Mihai, marketing manager for Carrefour Romania, adding that the 1,300 capacity parking facilities were permanently full.
Televisions, bananas and food in general are the best-selling products at the Carrefour hypermarket in Brasov. Tenants at the two shopping complexes say the high number of visitors has generated high sales. "The large number of visitors required more staff than initially planned," said Dan Ostahie, chairman of Altex Group, which has an Altex store in Carrefour Brasov's shopping galleries and a Media Galaxy store in Plaza Romania.
The German Metro Group also opened a cash & carry store in Brasov a week ago. The store is located close to the Carrefour hypermarket and was the result of a 15 million euro investment.
Although there will be no direct competition in this area, since cash & carry stores are dedicated to business customers, the German group has chosen to keep its doors open round the clock, seven days a week, until Christmas, with sales in the last two months of the year being at a yearly peak.
ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro
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