Expert: Russian market is the best in the world for retail

The Russian market has enormous potential for developing retail business, though it would be a challenge for new players to enter, says Lev Khasis, Senior Vice-President of Wal-Mart.

“I strongly believe, the Russian market is the best market for retail around the world. You can’t find anywhere in the world a country with such potential for growing business in retail”, Mr Khasis said. He went on to say: “There are a lot of examples of very successful entries of big international retail companies in Russian market like Auchan, Metro, and Ikea. And they entered the Russian market about 10-12 years ago; it was the right moment for organic growth of the business”.But some big international retailers such as Carrefour failed to develop its business in Russia as there are fewer opportunities for organic growth than 10 years ago, according to Mr Khasis. “The only way of entering the Russian market now is buying some of the existing players or just entering with an e-commerce solution when you don’t need any stores at all,” he explained.The market share of big players in Russia is about 3-5% comparing with 23-25% in Western Europe. “So the space to grow for Russian retailers such as Dixi, X5, Magnit is enormous”, Mr Khasis said.