The Ukrainian drogerie retailer EVA has estimated material losses due to the war at UAH 360 million, CEO of the chain Olha Shevchenko said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

"The most painful thing is that we lost three of our people: two died at the front, one employee as a result of the bombing of a shopping center in Kremenchuk. Of course, there are material losses – UAH 300 million for goods, about UAH 60 million for equipment," Shevchenko said.

She also pointed to the chain reduction: currently 179 stores out of 1,100 that were open before the start of the war are not working.

"Most of the non-working stores are located in the occupied territory and in the war zone. In the liberated territories, we are trying to resume work as soon as possible. In particular, almost all of our stores have been restored in the capital region and northern regions," Shevchenko said.

She stressed that the company does not abandon development plans.

"We won't be able to open 90 stores like last year. But we continue to work, we sign new contracts. While 11 new stores are open, we will open approximately the same number of stores before the end of the year. Now we are approaching the choice of location especially carefully, we try to choose the best locations from the point of view of the consumer and, of course, security issues," Shevchenko said.

The drogerie retailer EVA is focused on the development of the main format, the average store area is 150-160 square meters. As for the new EVA beauty lab store format for shopping centers, which began to be developed in 2019, it has been put on hold for now, the CEO said.

"We had four of them, three were closed during the war. EVA beauty lab has already been reopened in Chernihiv, and in the capital [Retroville shopping center]. They have not yet been restored in Kharkiv [French Boulevard shopping center], but we hope to open it again before the end of the year. We strive to develop the EVA beauty lab format, but there are no proposals for this year," she said.

RUSH LLC, which manages the EVA chain, was founded in 2002. It has 51 own brands, which are represented by goods for the home, perfumery, cosmetics, jewelry, personal hygiene products, accessories, lingerie and children's goods.

As of February 23, 2022, there were 1,119 EVA stores in Ukraine. According to data at the beginning of September, 179 retail outlets are not working.