Russian discounter Mere wants to expand into the United States. The brand, which brings back the “hard” to the hard discount, is looking for a project manager in the USA. He prefers to speak Russian and must be an expert in commercial real estate.
The intention is that the future project manager will provide locations for the stores, negotiate leases and efficiently open stores. Mere may be focusing on Alabama and Georgia, as these rural areas still have many small self-employed people today. Mass discounters like Walmart in General dollar are on the rise.
However, Mere promises to be even cheaper than Aldi in Lidl, by selling a limited base line of products directly from pallets. For example, there are no unpackaged fresh produce in European stores. In its home country, Russia, the retailer developed this concept – under the name Svetofor – ranked among the ten largest supermarket chains, with some 2,500 stores in Russia, Belarus and Central Asia since its inception in 2009.
Mere is also growing strongly outside of the United States and Russia. The first UK branch will open soon and there are also Belgian projects. German growth is also much slower than expected, with just five of the hundred planned stores opening after two years.
