In the top ten retail chains of Russia for the first time were alcoholic stores. According to Infoline, the network "Red & White" with revenue of 215 billion rubles. in 2017, managed to overtake the sellers of M.Video technology, DNS, placing it on the eighth line of the rating. Analysts expect that by 2021 the proceeds of "Red & White" will reach 500 billion rubles, which will allow the network to qualify for entry into the top three market leaders.

As follows from the Infoline rating, which Kommersant was familiar with, the network of alcoholic retail stores Krasnoe & Beloy in 2017 was the first in the top ten largest Russian retailers in terms of revenue. At the end of 2015, the retailer occupied the 14th line with a turnover of 82.5 billion rubles, a year later rose to 11th place (145 billion rubles.). Over the past year, the turnover of "Red & White" increased by another 48.3%, to 215 billion rubles. That allowed the company to outperform the proceeds of M.Video (198.2 billion rubles), DNS (197.8 billion rubles) rubles) and "Okay" (174.3 billion rubles.).

According to Infoline, at the end of 2017, "Red & White" managed almost 5.3 thousand stores with a total area of ​​421.4 thousand square meters. m. Today the network operates in more than 50 Russian regions, according to its website. The owner of the "Red & White" is Sergey Studennikov. His fortune Forbes in 2018 estimated at $ 950 million, which corresponds to the 115th place in the ranking of the richest businessmen in Russia.

The undisputed leader of the format of the alcoholic brands "Red & White" has become due to the strategy of an aggressive discounter, a deep understanding of the alcohol category and the needs of consumers, said Mikhail Burmistrov, head of Infoline Analytics. These are affordable and simple stores that are understandable to the target audience, Irina Jabotova, consultant at Jos De Vries The Retail Company, agrees.

For comparison: a bottle of baker's Maker's Mark of 0.7 liters in the catalog of "Red & White" is presented for 1.7 thousand rubles. On the Winestyle web site this product is available for 2,3 thousand rubles, on the site of the "Aromatic World" "- for 2.29 thousand rubles.

According to Mr. Burmistrov, keeping low prices "Red & White" can, in particular, through effective logistics: the network manages six distribution centers, its car fleet exceeds 2.1 thousand cars. According to the last indicator, the retailer is second only to the X5 Retail Group (3.03 thousand cars) and Magnit (more than 6 thousand cars). At the same time, the expert notes, the assortment of alcohol "Red & White" often surpasses many federal networks, which makes it possible to generate high traffic.

The alcohol segment in the Russian retail sector is on the rise today, partly due to increased consumption of wine, especially in large cities, says Ms. Bolotova. For retailers, she adds, this is a good opportunity to diversify the range with high margin goods and stand out against the competition. So, according to her, active development of the alcoholic shelf today, in particular, are engaged in discounters "Yes!" (Included in the GC "OK") and hypermarkets Globus. "The demand for the category is very good: seeing the feedback from customers, we began to develop exclusive offers," confirms the representative of Globus.

"Red & White" is currently transforming some objects into a "store by the house" format, supplementing the alcoholic assortment, which will allow customers to buy from federal discounters Pyaterochka, Magnit, Dixi and hypermarkets, Mikhail Burmistrov adds. According to his forecast, in the next few years the network will continue to grow actively. Evidence of this is that since April this year the network has started to open more than 200 new stores a month. With such a pace in 2020, the retailer will manage more than 10 thousand objects, and its revenue will exceed 500 billion rubles, the expert estimated. Thus, he sums up, by the end of 2018 "Red & White" can enter the top five of the largest networks, replacing "Dixie" from it, and in 2021 will be able to compete for the third place with "Lenta".