A year later, Sergei Galitsky and his partner opened the company Transasia for the supply and sale of cosmetics from brands such as Avon, P&G, and Johnson & Johnson.
A year later, Transasia became the exclusive distributor of P&G in the Southern region. At the same time, Galitsky decided to leave the business to his partners in order to devote himself entirely to the development of the food industry.
Transasia
At the same time, Sergey Nikolaevich was in no hurry to conquer large cities. His primary goal was to build a network of small retail outlets available in small towns and on the outskirts.
The first self-service store 99 acres data package in the food retail sector was opened at the height of the default and impoverishment of the population in 1998. And in 2000, the format was changed in favor of a discounter - this marked the beginning of the famous Magnit chain , one of the leaders in global retail.
Why Magnet?
Few people know the story of how the famous name of the retail chain appeared. Sergey Galitsky held a competition among his top managers, and as a result of the brainstorming, "LOW TARIFFS STORE" was born, or "Magnet" for short.
"We opened 1-2 stores every day": the rapid growth of the Galitsky empire
As we have already said, the decision to locate their stores in small towns with a population of 1000-1500 residents turned out to be decisive. Moreover, the promotion and sale of goods from the southern regions immediately inclined many local manufacturers to cooperate with the fast-growing network. Just look at how quickly the business developed:
In 2001 , Magnit, with 250 stores, became the leader in retail sales in Russia in terms of the number of outlets.
In 2005, the turnover reached 1.6 billion dollars, which allowed it to overtake its main competitor from X-Retail Group (Pyaterochka). There were already more than 1,500 stores .
Magnit store
Galitsky's company opened 1-2 new outlets every day. For example, Pyaterochka's competitor had only 650 stores at that time.
In 2006 , the company went public, raising about $368 million for 19% of its shares.
In 2007 , the chain opened its first hypermarket.
In 2010, the idea of creating cosmetics stores, Magnit-Cosmetic, began to be implemented.
In 2012, an energy and household company was founded to service its own retail outlets.
By July 2016, the network consisted of about 13,000 stores in 2,500 localities.
At the same time, daily:
From 2,500 to 3,000 heavy-duty trucks arrive at Magnit warehouses , and the same number leave.
The stores serve more than 5.5 million customers .
Over 40 million transactions and over 2,500 payments to suppliers are processed.
"I think that technologically our business is one of the most difficult. To continue to call us traders is a mockery."
And as proof, in the Forbes ranking of the most innovative companies in the world in 2015, Galitsky’s network took 23rd place, ahead of Visa, Starbucks and Adob