PriceSmart To Open 50th Warehouse Club In Bucaramanga, Colombia This Fall

PriceSmart (NASDAQ: PSMT) this week announced that it plans to start construction of its ninth warehouse club in the Bucaramanga suburb of Floridablanca, Colombia, with a scheduled opening of fall of 2021. With the addition of this new Colombia club and the new clubs already under construction in Guatemala City, Guatemala, and the Kingston suburb of Portmore, Jamaica, PriceSmart expects to have 50 clubs in operation by spring 2022.

In October 2019, PriceSmart purchased approximately 210,000 square feet of land in Floridablanca to build a smaller format club compared to its traditional warehouse club designs. Floridablanca is suburb of Bucaramanga, the capital of Colombia’s Santander department, and the largest city in Colombia east of Bogotá. Known as one of Colombia’s most highly developed cities with a human development index score of .879, the city of 800,000 has a diverse economy and direct international flights to and from Panamá & the United States.

“The commitment to another warehouse club in Colombia reflects our continuing belief that Colombia represents a significant growth market for the company. The club will be built as a smaller format in this secondary city market, which is located approximately 250 miles from our ‘Las Américas’ club in Medellín, Colombia. The decision to proceed with the Bucaramanga club is also driven by our experience with our other small formats, the potential we see in secondary markets, and the opportunity to expand our reach with the support of our newly developed online and last-mile capabilities,” said PriceSmart CEO Sherry S. Bahrambeygui.

“We now have three new clubs under construction. We expect this club and our previously announced Guatemala City, Guatemala club to open in the fall of 2021 and our Portmore, Jamaica club to open in the spring of 2022. With the completion of these three clubs, we will have reached the 50-club milestone, but continue to believe that we still have significant growth opportunities ahead. In addition to future club growth, we also continue to focus on driving comparable net merchandise sales in our existing locations and through our omni-channel shopping alternatives. This would not have been possible without the dedication of our team across all aspects of the business,” she added.

Above Bucaramanga cityscape photo: © Loren Moss