Holodilnik.ru plans to open more than 120 mono-brand stores of household appliances

Holodilnik.ru plans to open more than 120 mono-brand stores throughout the country in 2024 for partners, including Haier, Candy, Hisense, Kuppersberg, etc. The retailer expects to receive up to 15% of revenue from them by the end of 2024. Market participants believe that the number of mono-brand equipment stores in the Russian Federation will continue to grow, but to effectively organize their work, serious investments in marketing will be required.

Commercial director of Holodilnik.ru Alexey Pogudalov told Kommersant that the retailer will launch more than 120 mono-brand stores of Chinese, Russian and Turkish household appliances in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg and other cities with a population of over a million in 2024. Among the brands he named Haier, Candy, Hisense, Grundig, DeLonghi, Kuppersberg, Weissgauff, etc.

Holodilnik.ru will act as a retail operator, and the stores themselves will belong to the brands, the top manager specified. According to him, both the brands themselves and Holodilnik.ru will invest in renting and equipping retail outlets. Mr. Pogudalov did not specify the volume of investments. He hopes that by the end of 2024, mono-brand points of sale will provide more than 15% of the retailer’s revenue.

Kuppersberg CEO Dmitry Shashkin confirmed that the company is in negotiations with Holodilnik.ru, but there is no final decision yet, “the goal is to diversify the business – there are growth points in building logistics and retail sales for manufacturers.” Weissgauff confirmed the launch of its own outlets in partnership with the retailer. According to a brand representative, the first store has already opened in Krasnodar. “We expect results in the form of brand recognition in the regions and increased sales, of course,” he said. The other vendors mentioned did not respond to Kommersant.

Against the backdrop of the departure of Western smartphone vendors, Chinese smartphone vendors have already begun to actively open showrooms in the Russian Federation, among them Tecno and Realme (see Kommersant on October 5). Alexey Belyakov, CEO of household appliances manufacturer Vard, says the brand plans to open its retail store by the end of the year.

In Russia, RBT Electronics and Holodilnik.ru are currently implementing strategies for opening partner mono-brand stores, says a Kommersant source among top managers of a chain of electronics stores. “There are also small regional partners, but it is more convenient for vendors to work with one large network. Companies do not go to M.Video-Eldorado, since the retailer proposes to create a trading area only inside its own store,” he notes.

Kommersant’s source clarified that partners generally receive 20–30% of sales, providing “logistics, warehouses and store management.” According to the founder of the Jacky`s household appliances manufacturer, Huseyn Imanov, vendors “want independence from federal networks, since some of them offer unfavorable conditions.”

M.Video-Eldorado said that this year more than 2 thousand “branded spaces” of manufacturers of household appliances and electronics appeared in their network, and in total there will be about 9 thousand “reserved zones” by the end of the year. “On average, brand sales in stores with branded spaces are 20% higher than in similar locations without their own spaces,” explained a representative of the retailer.

In order for a mono-brand store to work effectively, the brand must be well recognized, says Tikhon Smykov, president and managing partner of Inventive Retail Group (manages retail of restore:, Samsung, Xiaomi, etc.). According to him, in the case of the mentioned brands, serious investments in marketing from vendors will be required. According to a Kommersant source among electronics retailers, the number of mono-brand stores will increase, since vendors “do not want to allow a monopoly of online marketplaces.”

Timofey Kornev