Atacadao opens its first store in the country
Dinero, 09 March 2010
Today, the Carrefour Group officially opened the doors of Atacadao: Its first wholesale store in the country.
Atacadao, which means wholesaler in Portuguese, is a new format meant to satisfy the needs of small and medium merchants in Colombia. The store is located at Agenda Boyaca and 13th Street in Bogotá and has an area of 18,000 square meters, 6500 of which are sales floor and 6500 are for storage and cold store. With an investment of $40 billion, this new store will create 300 direct and nearly 200 indirect jobs.
Open every day from 5 in the morning, the new store intends to improve the quality of living of small and medium merchants, offering them low prices, personalized service, a broad selection and the option to find everything in just one place, with 24 cash registers available for payment and a specially designed loading zone for privately-owned vehicles.
"With a smaller variety but a larger quantity of products, Atacadao intends to offer better prices than a hypermarket, by adjusting to the strategy of suppliers for traditional markets, and decreasing costs on the supply and distribution chain for merchants," says Franck Pierre, President of Carrefour Colombia. In addition, he says that "Colombia is the first country where the Brazilian model will be replicated, for further replication in the other countries where we are operating.
Like the Carrefour stores in the country, this new wholesale chain will be a part of the "Schools are part of our lives" program, in which each store sponsors a school in its area of influence. At present, the program benefits over 27,000 children in 68 schools nationwide.
Atacadao, which means wholesaler in Portuguese, is a new format meant to satisfy the needs of small and medium merchants in Colombia. The store is located at Agenda Boyaca and 13th Street in Bogotá and has an area of 18,000 square meters, 6500 of which are sales floor and 6500 are for storage and cold store. With an investment of $40 billion, this new store will create 300 direct and nearly 200 indirect jobs.
Open every day from 5 in the morning, the new store intends to improve the quality of living of small and medium merchants, offering them low prices, personalized service, a broad selection and the option to find everything in just one place, with 24 cash registers available for payment and a specially designed loading zone for privately-owned vehicles.
"With a smaller variety but a larger quantity of products, Atacadao intends to offer better prices than a hypermarket, by adjusting to the strategy of suppliers for traditional markets, and decreasing costs on the supply and distribution chain for merchants," says Franck Pierre, President of Carrefour Colombia. In addition, he says that "Colombia is the first country where the Brazilian model will be replicated, for further replication in the other countries where we are operating.
Like the Carrefour stores in the country, this new wholesale chain will be a part of the "Schools are part of our lives" program, in which each store sponsors a school in its area of influence. At present, the program benefits over 27,000 children in 68 schools nationwide.
