Our History

The history of the NetCost Market supermarket chain started in 1991, when Sam Shnayder, a Russian-speaking immigrant from Tashkent took a loan to buy a small "Russian" store named Ukraina in Bensonhurst.

A year later, Sam entrusted his store with his wife Rita Shnayder and, together with a few of his friends, opened the venerable Gambrinus restaurant. Later, having gained experience in the field of retail sales, Sam and his son founded a seafood import and export company - Royal Seafood. After seven years of successful work, Sam and his son, who joined the company as its vice-president, developed a new concept of operation as  a response to the new realities of the modern market.

The time was ripe for a new approach to the ethnic Russian food business - the time of the supermarket with a wide assortment of products from all over Eastern Europe.

Sam Shnayder, together with his son Edward and cousin Benny Shnayder, rented small premises in the Sheepshead Bay area, where they opened a small economy store  named NetCost Market, selling value imports from Eastern Europe. That was the beginning of a period of astounding growth of the company - already by 2003 the sales volume quintupled! By that time the company was joined by new associates Alik Niyazov and Artur Gavrilov, and later by another Sam's cousin Gennady Tolston.

The Shnayders invested soaring retail profits, their personal savings and funds from investors into creation of their own chain of NetCost Market supermarkets.

Today, the NetCost Market chain comprises of six stores: four in Brooklyn, one on Staten Island and another in Philadelphia, PA. In addition to the stores, the chain has its own fleet of trucks, a warehouse with 70,000 sq. feet of space, and its own kitchen in the Far Rockaway area that makes prepared food. The total number of workers employed by the company is over 400.

"We are very much the Costco of the ethnic Eastern European market," Edward Shnayder said in one of his interviews for the American media.

By importing in quantity from more than a dozen of Eastern European countries and from other parts of the world, as well as by manufacturing a large share of products (herring, pickles, delicatessen, bread etc.), NetCost Market can offer savings of up to 20% compared to same products in other stores.

The stores of the chain offer dozens of roe varieties, fresh bread, a wide choice of cheeses and sausages, fresh and canned fruits and vegetables, fresh meat, fish and milk products, pickles and delicatessen.

NetCost Market's strategy is one of expansion, allowing the chain to increase volume of sales and get greater discounts from suppliers and, as a result, offer even lower prices.

NetCost's immediate plans include further expanding its network in New York and areas of New Jersey in close proximity, while future plans are centered on going national and creating a NetCost Market chain of supermarkets in cities with considerable immigrant communities, such as Chicago, Miami and San Francisco!