Ukraine discount chain Aurora plans to open 400 new stores
Dollar store retail chain Aurora plans to open 400 new stores in Ukraine in 2024, some of which will be in a new format, Co-founder and CEO of Aurora, Taras Panasenko, told NV Business on Dec. 5.
Forty-five outlets will open by the end of 2023 with another 400 planned for 2024.
"We plan to test a new format - stores with an area of about 400 square meters,” Panasenko said.
“The average area of existing outlets is 150 square meters.”
The amount of investment in the new format store is UAH 4 million ($109,029).
The retailer intends to develop abroad as well. The company opened its first foreign store in Romania in October, and now there are seven Aurora outlets in the country. Next year, the chain will grow to 70 stores.
"We are also planning to enter the Moldovan market. The first stores may open in late 2024 or early 2025."
Aurora was founded in 2011 by Lev Zhydenko, Taras Panasenko, and Lesya Klymenko and is based out of Poltava.
In 2021, Aurora announced plans to enter the markets of Central and Eastern Europe with the help of Horizon Capital, as well as to conduct an IPO.
Aurora was one of the five largest discounters in Central and Eastern Europe before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In June 2023, Aurora announced plans to triple the number of stores within three years and enter the Romanian market.
At the beginning of 2023, the chain had more than 800 stores. The dollar store format is an internationally recognized format of socially oriented stores with a $1 price point.
According to Opendatabot, the owner of Vydyhna Kupivlia LLC, which develops the chain, is Cyprus-based Auroretail Investments Limited, with Zhydenko as its beneficiary.
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