CHILE. Grupo Vierci, a leading South American retail-to-media company, is set to open what it says is Chile’s largest duty free store, the Mega Shopping outlet in the Iquique Free Zone.
The 1,218sq m store will open in September and will be located in Mall Zofri, the retail heart of the Iquique Free Zone, South America’s largest tax free zone, 1,800km north of capital Santiago de Chile.
Grupo Vierci is already a distributor to travel retail border shops in Paraguay and Bolivia, and has four of its own speciality stores in Mall Zofri. Now it plans to broaden its portfolio with the addition of a fully fledged duty free store in the free zone close to the port of Iquique, according to William Stewart, the group’s General Manager in Chile.
Stewart told The Moodie Report: “For many years Grupo Vierci has been present in the travel retail industry with two [main] roles. Firstly, it is one of the top three distributors to border shops in Paraguay and Bolivia. Additionally, the company has been operating boutiques at Mall Zofri. Therefore engaging in a much higher scale project was a natural evolution of our corporate business strategy which involves focusing both on internationalisation and on retail.”
Stewart added: “Over the past few years many of our suppliers have encouraged us to expand our horizons in travel retail. After two years of market research, the right opportunity came up in 2009 with Mega Shopping.”
The store will stock a range of items including fragrances & cosmetics, fashion & accessories, liquor, confectionery, electronics and computer equipment. The retailer said it will offer many world-class brands in the facility. “Our sales proposal is both simple and powerful at the same time,” noted Stewart. “Mega Shopping’s consumer will be surprised with the brand mix, as it will be unique within the region.”
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Grupo Vierci is one of South America’s leading retail-to-media groups, with operations in six countries |
The company said its track record and market knowledge at Iquique would help the business, as would strong traffic levels – Mall Zofri has around nine million visitors a year. Around 80% of these are from northern Chile.
“The region itself is relatively wealthy, with a GDP per capita almost double the country’s average thanks to a strong mining industry and an increasing tourism industry,” Stewart noted. “Of the remaining 20% of visitors, 10% are from other areas of Chile while the other 10% come from Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and even Europe. All customers have the benefit of purchasing up to US$1,200 per month without paying the 19% VAT.”
For more information on the project, please contact Alexandre Granotier, who heads Grupo Vierci’s International Division, at: alexandre-granotier@grupovierci.com
About Grupo Vierci
Grupo Vierci has more than 7,100 employees and operations in six South American countries: Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Uruguay. Its main activities include: retail (supermarket chains, perfume shops, clothing stores), distribution (of leading liquor, fragrance and electronics brands), franchising (Burger King restaurants in Paraguay, Uruguay and Santa Catarina State in Brazil) and multimedia (two TV channels plus one newspaper and two radio stations).
