In the first half of this year, Poznan-headquartered retailer Zabka opened 577 new stores bringing the chain’s total number of outlets to over 8,500. More than 7,200 are operated by franchisees, which the company says is contributing significantly to the development of micro- and small businesses in Poland.
“We continue our development – not only are we opening more sites, but we are also investing in new store formats, improving franchise offer, and innovative solutions” says Adam Manikowski, Managing Director of Żabka Polska. “Our chain already has more than 8,500 stores, and we start new facilities in places that allow us to be as close to customers as possible. In our portfolio, we have various types of stores: office buildings, transit points, traffic locations, and gas stations. At the same time, we are implementing several projects which are part of our Responsibility Strategy, one of the main areas of which is to increase the satisfaction of franchisees with our cooperation.”
Zabka opens its facilities not only in agglomerations and large cities but also in towns below 50 thousand residents. In many of them, there was no Żabka store before – as in Boguchwałowice (Silesian voivodeship), where the 8500th store is located. Boguchwałowice is a village on the Przeczycko-Siewierski Lagoon, approx. 35 km from Katowice. 752 people are living here, which means that it is currently the smallest place where the Żabka chain store has been launched.
Franchisee Mateusz Karcz is satisfied with such location of the site “A store run in the smallest village in Poland is a huge challenge for me, but an even bigger opportunity. I come from a small village and I appreciate the great potential of this type of place, especially in the context of running a store. A small village means there are trusted and permanent customers who build a local community” he admits. Across twenty years of its operations on Polish market, Zabka has won the position of the leader in the convenience sales segment.
