After this morning Cencosud and Cornershop announced a surprise agreement to create a strategic alliance which includes purchases in supermarkets and Home Improvement stores in the countries where the chain operates in the region, the CEO of the holding, Matías Videla, gave more details of the operation and confirmed that the 18% surcharge for purchases in Chile has already been eliminated.
He also announced that next week the elimination of supermarket chains and Easy stores in Peru, Colombia and Brazil will take effect.
Videla said that with the agreement they hope to improve their competitive advantages over their rivals and significantly increase their participation in supermarket sales.
In this sense, he highlighted that, with the alliance, the Santa Isabel chain opens the possibility of making online purchases, which until now it did not have, thus generating new opportunities given its geographical deployment.
The executive stressed that the agreement is part of Cencosud’s strategy to strengthen electronic commerce and supermarket sales, the one that according to emphasized is fully supported by the president and controller of the holding, Horst Paulmann.
Videla clarified that the agreement does not include exclusivity, and that it is Cornershop’s decision, company controlled by Uber Technologies Inc, if it will continue to operate with other competitive chains such as Lider.
The agreement also includes the development of stores dedicated to e-commerce picking (dark stores), both in Chile and in other countries.
In this regard, Videla said that these stores are already under construction and will be available in the coming weeks.
He also explained that for its construction a joint investment will be made between Cencosud and Cornershop.
In the case of Cencosud, he did not specify the amounts, But he said that they are rather smaller resources compared to the investments that the holding company usually makes, while on the Cornershop side, he affirmed that he committed resources for US $ 10 million for their development in Chile.
The executive clarified that Cencosud will continue to operate its own online sales channels in parallel and did not rule out that in a second stage the Paris stores could be included in the alliance.
Asked about the reason why Argentina was not included in the agreement, he said it is because Cornershop does not have operations in that country.
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