Fix Price Opens Five Stores in Serbia
Russian discount chain Fix Price has opened its first five stores in Serbia, three in Belgrade and two in Novi Sad, with the local branch set up through a company registered in Kazakhstan.
Russian discount chain Fix Price has opened its first five stores in Serbia, three in Belgrade and two in Novi Sad. The company announced the opening on August 13 on its Instagram account, listing the store addresses without an official press release.
The Belgrade locations are spread across three municipalities:
- Vojvode Stepe 312, Vozdovac
- Krusevacka 22, Vracar
- Cingrijina 13a, Zvezdara
The Novi Sad stores are located at Cara Dusana Street 2 and Oslobodjenja Boulevard 95.
The chain’s entry into the Serbian market was signaled earlier by a local website the company had launched before the opening, listing the first products and their prices. The exact locations, however, were only revealed through the social media post, on the same day the stores began operating.
What Does Fix Price Sell?
The range covers more than 2,000 products: food items, household chemicals, toys, office supplies, clothing and party goods. The company describes its offer as an authentic assortment at lower prices, a standard positioning for the discount format.
That format runs on a different calculation than a regular supermarket. The margin per item is lower, the choice within each category is narrower, and results depend on inventory turnover and the number of customers per store. Five stores opened on the same day give the chain an initial network in the country’s two largest urban markets, Belgrade and Novi Sad.
The Serbian Branch Was Set Up Through a Kazakh Company
The branch in Serbia was established through a company registered in Kazakhstan. The Fix Price group has operated since 2007 and now runs a network of more than 7,800 stores in ten countries.
Alongside Russia and Kazakhstan, the chain operates in Belarus, Latvia, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Mongolia and the United Arab Emirates. Of all those markets, only Latvia is a member of the European Union, and Serbia is the first Western Balkan country where the group has opened stores.
The group ranks among the fastest growing discount retail chains, and its expansion so far has run mostly across former Soviet markets. The Belgrade and Novi Sad opening marks its first move outside that circle in this part of Europe, carried out through a legal entity registered in Kazakhstan rather than directly from the parent country.
The numbers show how small a step this is for now. Five stores against a network of 7,800 amount to roughly 0.06 percent of the group’s total store count. It looks like a trial entry into a new market rather than a full rollout of the format at once.
How Was the Opening Announced?
The channel used to announce the opening says something about the company’s approach to the market. Instead of a press conference or a release sent to newsrooms, the company posted the news on its Instagram profile, along with a list of addresses. The same pattern shaped the run up to the launch, when the local website with prices went live before the opening date was even known.
How Many Stores Are Next
The opening announcement contains no figures on staff numbers, store size or further expansion plans, and no dates for upcoming openings. All that is known is the number of locations that started operating and their addresses, so the scale of the investment cannot be put into a figure at this point.
Fix Price is not the only foreign chain targeting Serbian retail. Several international companies known for low prices are preparing their own entry into the local market, so competition in the discount segment is intensifying precisely among shoppers who buy on price rather than brand.
For a customer in Vozdovac, Vracar, Zvezdara or the two Novi Sad streets, the difference is measurable right away, on the price tag. For the chain, the first five stores are a test of demand before deciding how many more will follow.
