Mercado Libre, the largest online buying and selling platform in the country, is still determined to defend its leadership with fingernails and teeth, against the latent threat of giants like Amazon and EBay that have Argentina among its regional goals.
The company founded in the country by Marcos Galperin gave two blows of high impact in the same week: commissioned the construction of a distribution center in Tapiales with an investment of $615 million and became the first local company to create the figure of defender D The client within its structure.
In the first case, it is a logistic center whose construction was commissioned to the firm Bautec and will be located within the Central market. It will consist of 32,000 square meters covered “with structure of full-soul metal porticos that allow the provision of the 80 docks for loading and unloading required for the planned delivery of merchandise of 74 vehicles per hour simultaneously For shipping to the whole country, “specified the builder.
For a second stage it is expected to complete a total area of 75,000 square meters with a final investment of $800 million.
“The main purpose of this work is to provide a comprehensive logistic solution to vendors from different e-commerce sites, as they will be able to classify 300,000 packages per day in an automated manner. This will allow to manage a greater volume of product and to expand the storage capacity, “they explained.
Amazon has already completely decided to install its regional distribution center in Chile, after evaluating the costs of doing so in Argentina. Some analysts interpreted that decision as a bad sign for the local economy. But it was good news for Mercado Libre. Anyway, far from falling asleep on the laurels, Galperin takes advantage of all the opportunities to further deepen its expansion strategy. One of them is the figure of the client defender, created in early July by the Ministry of Production. Free market announced that it will include it in its structure from October.
“A leading company like the free market has adhered so quickly and begins to rely on its own customer advocate is a very good sign for consumers as much as for the rest of the vendors. This shows the degree of commitment and attention they have for users, “commented the national director of consumer defense, Fernando Blanco Muiño.
