All-Ukrainian electronics and home appliance chain Foxtrot opened the brand’s first representative office in liberated Kherson on Saturday, the retailer’s press service said.
“We are glad to be among the first to tell the residents and guests of Kherson again: welcome to Foxtrot! We thank VSU for their heroism and our colleagues for their readiness to start work as soon as possible,” the press service quoted Foxtrot CEO Alexei Zozula as saying.
Store on Ushakov Ave., 26 will work as a point of issue and processing of Internet orders from 11:00 to 15:00 daily. Over time, the plan is to resume full operation with merchandise and an expanded list of services. Also operates free delivery of online purchases from Foxtrot.ua partners – in the operating offices and post offices of Novaya Post.
Till February 24 Foxtrot network was represented in Kherson by two stores. One of them, located in Fabrika shopping mall, was damaged as a result of hostile shelling of the mall in early March. The second retailer suspended its work, refusing to work under the occupation regime. Immediately after the liberation of Kherson, the business began preparations for a return to get up and running as quickly as possible.
“Foxtrot” is one of the largest retail chains in terms of the number of stores and sales of electronics and home appliances in Ukraine. As of the beginning of 2022 the brand is omni-channel (offline and online trade), covers 170 stores in 90 oblast and rayon centers of Ukraine and online-shop Foxtrot.UA.
Foxtrot brand is developed by Foxtrot group of companies, co-founders – Valery Makovetsky and Gennady Vykhodtsev.
Depot Development Group from the Foxtrot Group (Kyiv), developing the Depo’t shopping centers chain in Ukraine, plans to expand the portfolio of retail property in Ukrainian regions via acquisition of finished facilities and building new ones, Foxtrot Group Head Valeriy Makovetsky has said.
“We have several construction projects and a number of projects for expanding/restyling existing facilities,” Makovetsky said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
At the same time, he said that the group does not plan to build a shopping center in Kyiv, since this is a specific market “with a long and not very high return on invested capital.”
“We have another strategy: construction of commercial real estate in the regions of Ukraine. We are trying to acquire completed and, from our point of view, liquid, small facilities. Next year [2019] we have planned the construction of a good facility in the center of Chernihiv. We are currently developing a restyling project of our facility in Kryvy Rih. We are attaching a sports complex with a swimming pool for the Sportlife network. We are planning to reformat the shopping center in Zaporizhia, to expand our shopping center in the center of Kropyvnytsky. Maybe, we will take part as partners in one of the Kharkiv facilities,” Makovetsky said, describing the plans.
According to him, these will be small regional-scale shopping centers, the total area of each of them will be about 10,000-15,000 square meters.
As Makovetsky said, Depo’t shopping centers show good performance, so the issue of selling them is not on the agenda.
“This business demonstrates good efficiency. The facilities stably show profits. Rental rates this year have grown by about 30%. Therefore, we plan to develop this area of business and the issue of selling them is not on the agenda,” the head of the Foxtrot Group said.
The Foxtrot. Household Appliances network, developed by the Foxtrot group of companies (Kyiv), is working on a new online platform and wants to increase its share of online sales to at least 20%, Head of the Foxtrot Group and Head of the supervisory board of the Foxtrot. Household Appliances network Valeriy Makovetsky has said.
“The company has decided to invest large amounts of money in a modern online platform, one of the leaders in this segment in the world – SAP. This is quite large investment that will help us restructure the sales technology, the communication interface with consumers, and we hope we will be able to strengthen our position online. We are planning to increase sales in this segment at least twice,” Makovetsky said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He did not name the amount of investment in the development of the new online platform, but said that now the share of online sales of the Foxtrot network is about 10%.
According to Makovetsky, the company sees great prospects for the development of multi-channel sales.
“I have to say that Foxtrot also develops multi-channel sales: a consumer can purchase goods on our website, in the nearest store, or order delivery right to the door – from the website or a store using an electronic catalog, also receiving expert advice. I see that the same model is being developed by Comfy and Eldorado. We understand the great prospects of this market,” he said.
According to Foxtrot, the number of visits of the online store in 2017 reached 6.5 million users during peak months.
Foxtrot. Household Appliances network has 162 supermarkets in 90 cities of Ukraine with a retail area of 153,000 square meters.
