RIYADH, 6 December 2007 — French retail chain Geant opened a new hypermarket here yesterday amid great fanfare and a lot of promotional opening offers. The new store, the largest retail outlet located in the Galleria Mall on King Fahd Road of the capital city, covers an area of 18,000 square meters, where more than 50,000 products were displayed for sale on the opening day. It is also running a launch promotion with amazing offers for customers.
“Our customers will definitely enjoy shopping in this store, which offers outstanding choice and prices plus an amazing location”, said Ron Tiarks, chief operating officer, while speaking on the occasion of the store’s inauguration here yesterday. “The opening of this hypermarket with a new look is marked by a promotional offer for hundreds of items,” Tiarks said, adding “Geant is doing very well compared to all other retail stores in the market”.
Referring to the new store, Tiarks said the Geant hypermarkets incorporated a very high standard of display and merchandising. The opening of this store represents Geant’s unparalleled services for customers. “I am very grateful to our customers, who have proven their support and loyalty to Geant,” said Tim Sutton, general manager of Geant Saudi Ltd. He pointed out that the new Geant outlet has 42 checkout counters to facilitate fast-track check-in and checkouts. The hypermarket, Sutton said, has a parking space for over 500 vehicles with several other facilities in Galleriya Mall where the new store is located.
He said that this new Geant hypermarket would be an entirely new shopping experience for the people of Riyadh with a wide central aisle like the latest European and American concepts. The ambience of Geant’s location, the construction of the mall, the competitive prices and its facilities and the diverse mix of products would always attract customers. “We are the pioneers as we have introduced the French hypermarket model in the Kingdom for consumer benefit with marginal profitability,” Sutton said.
He said the consumer was the ultimate winner in the fierce war of price competition. The new store will also sell a large number of products and services like groceries, bakery & butchery, textiles, fashion wear, shoes, jewelries, electronics, sports goods, household items & accessories, cosmetics, perfumes and much more. He said “one Geant store receives between 1,200 to1,500 customers of different nationalities on a daily basis.”
The customers are mainly Saudi and expatriate families, single men and women including housewives and children of all age groups. The Riyadh-based Geant Saudi Ltd. is currently on an expansion course, Sutton said. Geant Saudi is a result of a strategic alliance between Groupe Casino, one of the largest hypermarket companies in the world by revenues and Fawaz A. Al-Hokair Group, one of the largest retail chain companies in the Middle East. The Al-Hokair Group has about 50 international retail brands under its portfolio as of now.
