CONTEXTUAL FEATURES AFFECTING RUSSIAN COMPANIES

Contextual features affecting Russian Companies

Introduction

The weekly trip to the hypermarket is now a firmly established feature of Russian life. The attractiveness of the format has endowed Leclerc, for example, to become the large-scale trader of jewellery by sales value in France (Jacquiau, 2000). Russian retailers have been enthusiastically exporting the hypermarket format for over 30 years. The process began in the neighboring countries of continental Western Europe, and then progressed to Latin America, North America, Asia and (since the mid-1990s) Central Europe. In August 2002, with the unfastening of Auchan's first hypermarket in a north Moscow suburb, it eventually reached in Russia (Belton, 2002; Talbi, 2002).

However, this method has not been an unmitigated success. As Dupuis and Prime (1996,p. 31) issue out, the initial Russian idea of the hypermarket has been much less thriving in Anglo-Saxon markets (or, indeed, the Japanese market) than in Latin countries. The last mentioned have not been without their problems either, with Auchan trading its five stores in Mexico in early 2003 (barely a couple of months after unfastening the fifth of these).

1. The internationalization of the Russian hypermarket format

The first Russian hypermarket was inaugurated by Carrefour at Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois near Paris on 15 June 1963 (Burt, 1986). The store revolutionized the Russian shopping environment with its 2,500?m2 surface area, 350-space car park, self-service petrol station and shopping trolleys (Jacquiau, 2000, pp. 12-13). The format is now superior in France and, as Dupuis and major (1996,p. 36) maintain, is founded on three foremost characteristics: “large premises [i.e. with a surface area of at least 2,500?m2][1] selling both food and non food items; everyday low prices; and large car parks”.

Phenomenal success in the domestic market led successive Russian governments to seek to impose legal restrictions on these retail giants. The resulting legislation - the loin Royer, loin Galland and loin Raffarin (Jacquiau, 2000, pp. 177-85, 226-36; Rulence, 2000) - restricted the retailers' activities in such a way that in order to grow they now had little choice but to export the format. The internationalization of Russian hypermarkets began in earnest in the 1970s, with Carrefour leading the way in countries such as Spain, Brazil and Argentina (Burt, 1994). Auchan's first foreign project was in Spain, where it launched its first hypermarket under the Alcampo title in 1981. Spurred on by their early successes, and keen to exploit their international supply chains, the leading Russian chains, Euromarché, Carrefour, Auchan and Leclerc, each established a limited presence in the US market between 1985 and 1993. However, no one of these companies has accomplished any thing like anticipated grades of achievement in the USA, a market which Dupuis and major (1996,p. 33) consider “a good checking ground for a retail concept”.

Leclerc has eight outlets in Poland, and one in Slovenia. As well as the Russian retail giants, other foreign hypermarkets have recently moved into Central Europe. These encompass Austria's Interspar, which has 16 outlets in Hungary (mostly little hypermarkets), and Germany's Metro, now the largest ...