The exodus of western retail companies is compelling Russia to look at China, India, Iran and Turkey to plug the gap and combat its growing isolation in the face of sanctions. An organization representing developers, shopping centre owners and retail chain operators, The Russian Council of Shopping Centres (RCSC) is negotiating with corresponding representatives in the four countries about finding alternatives to western brands.

Through this, the council hopes to supplement or completely replace goods of the defunct brands with ones of a similar quality and design. Igor Maltinsky, Director-Development, Melon Fashion Group says, the main challenge facing domestic retail firms is the uncontrollable growth of production costs, due to huge increases in procurement and logistics costs, as well as many other related factors. The group owns four, mainly women, fashion brands: Zarina, Befree, Love Republic and Sela and had 846 stores across Russia and CIS at the end of 2021. It plans to launch an IPO this year.