They have just opened a hidden store in the Fabricato Shopping Center that allows them to save on rental costs for premises and vendors.
Parque Arauco, majority owned by the Said family of Chile, inaugurates its first Dark Store or hidden store in Medellín, in the Parque Fabricato de Bello Shopping Center. In less than six months, the Chileans have inaugurated two spaces with this service in the country, the first, inaugurated just six months ago, in December 2023, in Parque La Colina in Bogotá. Which join two others in operation in Parque Arauco Kennedy in Chile and MegaPlaza Independencia in Peru, and its plans are to continue taking advantage of the location of its shopping centers to provide this service.
The Dark Stores o Hidden Stores are warehouses that are dedicated to exclusively processing orders made through an online store, so the space only houses logistical and administrative operations without contact with the customer. They are hidden from the sight of customers, but located at points close to places with a large concentration of orders and where a physical store could typically be set up. It is the same concept of the dark kitchens that some restaurants use to provide home delivery services.
The hidden store trend is Colombia
The trend of hidden stores has increased along with the rise of e-commerce and had a great boost during the Covid19 pandemic. They are located in neuralgic points within cities, such as shopping centers, but their prices can be up to 50% lower than traditional premises, thanks to the cost of a lease that is not of a store but of a warehouse, the automated way in which they operate without so much staff, with 24/7 schedules, security included in the shopping center, and allowing for rapid distribution thanks to proximity to customers.
The Said group is not the only one betting on this option in the country. Grupo Éxito has been operating its hidden stores since the pandemic with very good results, and the also Chilean group Falabella, allies of the Echavarría family of Grupo Corona, inaugurated this past January a 500 m2 hidden store in the Mallplaza shopping center, located on Carrera 30 (NQS Avenue) in Bogotá, with which they seek to accelerate e-commerce operations in the capital.
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