Lenta has filed an application to register the trademark “Vingarage”
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The high margins of the alcohol market business attract new players to this segment. One of the largest retailers, Lenta, plans to develop its network of such stores. Other federal retail chains have already tried their hand at this segment, but eventually closed the projects due to difficulties with scaling the format and problems with creating an exclusive assortment. Today, high duties on imported products may also put pressure on filling the “shelves” of liquor stores, experts point out.
“Lenta” at the end of January 2024 filed an application to register the “Vingarage” trademark, including for the class of provision of services to retail stores, “Kommersant” found in the Rospatent database. A Kommersant source in the retail market notes that the retailer is developing a format of alcohol markets with a strong wine assortment, similar to the Vinlab chain. Lenta has already begun searching for employees for new stores, according to HeadHunter data. Lenta declined to comment.
The fact that the retailer is considering the possibility of acquiring one of the existing alcohol market chains was said in the fall of 2023 at a conference for investors by Lenta’s financial director Andrey Spivak, without specifying details. According to one of Kommersant’s interlocutors, the company was negotiating the purchase of the Gradusy chain, which is developing in the north-west of Russia, but the parties did not agree on the price of the transaction. Degrees did not respond to Kommersant’s request.
Lenta, where the main shareholder is Alexey Mordashov’s Severgroup, at the end of 2023 managed 261 hypermarkets and more than 2.5 thousand small format stores throughout Russia. Last year, the retailer managed to increase sales by 14.5% year-on-year, to RUB 615.5 billion.
Other federal retailers already had experience in creating their own chains of alcohol markets. So, in 2016, X5 Group launched Pyatnitsa, and in 2019 Magnit launched the Evening Magnit network, but later both companies abandoned these plans (see Kommersant, July 27, 2021). According to One Story partner Olga Sumishevskaya, previous attempts by large chains to open alcohol markets were unsuccessful, including because the assortment in them was almost completely duplicated with the products in regular retail chain stores. X5 Group did not respond to Kommersant’s request. Magnit told Kommersant that they do not plan to launch the format of classic alcohol markets.
The interest of retailers in the development of individual formats of alcohol stores is logical, since large chains are becoming noticeable importers of alcohol and developing their own and exclusive brands in this segment, reducing dependence on distributors and increasing the efficiency of assortment management in the category, says General Director of Infoline-Analytics Mikhail Burmistrov . Some federal chains were among the top five importers of wine and spirits by the end of 2023 (see Kommersant, February 1, 2024).
In addition, the format of alcohol markets is attractive from the point of view of low costs for equipping stores with high margins of such a business, says Alexander Stavtsev, head of the WineRetail information center. As an example, he cites the Krasnoe & Beloe and Bristol alcohol market chains, which are showing record growth rates in the number of stores. At the same time, by adding food and tobacco to the range, these chains are approaching the format of convenience stores, notes Mr. Stavtsev.
Mikhail Burmistrov points out that the classic format of alcohol stores, which include Vinlab or Aromatny Mir, has higher requirements for the assortment, but it is more difficult for such points of sale to achieve high traffic levels. In addition, for example, the Vinlab network is being developed by the manufacturer and importer of alcoholic beverages Novabev Group, which allows the retailer to create an exclusive assortment that especially attracts solvent buyers, notes Alexander Stavtsev.
Olga Sumishevskaya believes that the new format of Lenta will not become a classic alcohol market, but will include a combination of a high share of alcoholic products with an additional assortment in the form of snacks or fresh goods. At the same time, Mr. Stavtsev adds, Lenta will have to resolve issues with filling its assortment, which the retailer may have difficulty with, for example, due to increased duties on imported wines from “unfriendly” countries.
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