‘Of course we heard about how the opening of MediaMarkt failed at Alatyr shopping mall recently. The fact that the would-be customers who were willing to visit the store at night ended up waiting outside indicates a big marketing mistake of the management company; this is a huge blunder that surpasses all imagination. To tell the truth, if I had been one of those customers, I would definitely be anything but loyal to this mall. At any rate, I’m certainly not going to shop there now,’ Chairman of Yekaterinburg Tenant Union Alexander Murzin said to UrBC.

The night-time opening ceremony of MediaMarkt failed in Alatyr Shopping Center in Yekaterinburg. Despite all the claims made by the opening coordinators, the store never started working at 12 AM on December 10, 2009. TEN-Development Management Company has already declared they alone were fully responsible for what had happened. The company’s head Sergey Trofimov explained to UrBC reporters that they decided to back out of the night-time, large-scale opening ceremony upon the recommendation of the city authorities.

‘In fact, I was skeptical from the start when they decided to change the old name of Seventh Heaven to Alatyr. The new name is difficult to pronounce and sounds irritating to one’s ears. What’s more, I can’t understand what this new mall’s USP is. Finally, I personally feel the matters have been made worse because of my indignation at this double-dealing,’ Murzin added.

‘The managers of the mall should have thought it all over in advance. One wonders what they had been thinking about till the last minute. What did they get scared of to back out of the opening? Some unsuspecting people were hurt as a result.’