The St. Petersburg-based clothing manufacturer Melon Fashion Group, which owns the brands Zarina, befree, Love Republic, plans to continue its expansion in the Russian market, which began in 2018. In 2019, the company will begin active development in the regions and will begin to develop cities with a population of less than 500 thousand people. At the same time, Melon Fashion Group will continue to work on presenting brands in big cities. In total, about 100 stores will be opened (or updated) throughout Russia, of which 82 are own and 18 are franchised.

According to the director of the company's development department Igor Maltinsky, two factors prompted the company to actively develop in the regions: the shortage of commercial real estate in major Russian cities and the relative stagnation of the market. He added that for big cities, the most interesting task is to increase the formats of existing stores while maintaining revenue per square meter.

The volume of investments in the company is not disclosed, however, according to "RBC Petersburg", in 2019 the total volume of investments in the development strategy of Melon Fashion Group will exceed 1.5 billion rubles. For comparison, this year the company invests about 1.3 billion rubles in its development (including strategic projects and the opening of new outlets).

The extensive expansion program will include such large cities as Vladivostok and Khabarovsk, among the smaller ones - Veliky Novgorod, Nizhnevartovsk (KhMAO), Kyzyl (Republic of Tyva) and the city of Moskovsky (Novomoskovsky district of Moscow).

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