The Dia supermarket chain, with 2,700 stores spread throughout Spain, will unify its Dia Market and Dia & Go banners under a single commercial format, seeking a local store model, with at least half of the assortment of its own brand, and that this less than 15 minutes from 65% of the national territory, as stated today by its CEO Ricardo Álvarez.
Dia is immersed in a strategic plan, established for the period 2023-23, which goes first of all “for offering the fastest shopping experience in Spain so that the consumer is able to cover all their needs,” Álvarez emphasizes.
To do this, the supermarket chain wants to “differentiate itself with stores between 200 and 300 square meters with a lot of freshness in fruits and vegetables, where the customer has freedom of choice with a 50% own-brand assortment and the maximum quality- price,” he adds.
The new store redesign, which already affects 1,500 establishments out of a total of 2,706, – “by the end of 2023 we will have 2,200 completely renovated” – says Álvarez, aims to create a single concept that is perfectly identifiable by the customer that facilitates their shopping experience. purchase. In this way, as the stores are renovated, concepts such as Dia Market or Dia & Go will disappear. The banner La Plaza de Dia will remain for the time being. Of the chain’s 2,706 establishments, 2,325 are Dia: Dia & Go, Maxi and Market (75% of the total) and 275 La Plaza.
The changes in the stores will be accompanied by a reformulation of the own-brand product, which the company calls “new Dia quality”, which already affects 1,500 references: “Next year we will have 2,500 totally renewed own references that we will complement with 50 % of assortment with the big brands. Dia, which works with national suppliers in a proportion of 96%, wants to be in the top 3 of the best products in Spain,” says Álvarez.
and that the goal for 2022 is to open at least twenty, mainly in neighborhood and rural areas, and, already in the 2023-2024 period, “go to larger numbers” Currently, 52% of the Dia network is made up of franchised locations.
A franchisee that you want to take care of. “With the franchisee we want to protect their liquidity with a model in which we assume a lot of costs. It is based on few entry barriers so that they only take on the management with the client. We want the expansion to be through franchises,” says Álvarez.
The head of Dia also refers that during the pandemic they went from a share of 2% to 3% in online sales and that this is a channel that wants to be promoted, which will lead to greater agility in deliveries. “We want to strengthen the delivery service scheduled in 24 hours with ultra-fast deliveries in one hour for cities.”
The manager assures that the sales of the premises that already present the renewed image have increased their sales by up to 10% and highlights the fact that “while the average increase in supermarkets in Spain has been 10% in Dia has It was 8%. We have been the ones that have raised prices the least in the last 15 months”.
Álvarez also assures that, and therefore of clients, due to the fact that the Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman, shareholder of the investment fund Letterone, is a person close to Putin. “Our shareholder Letterone is an Anglo-Luxembourgish fund and Fridman is only one of the shareholders. He does not have active management in the company. Dia is a Spanish company with 23,000 workers.”