Makro is going all out for the small consumer; Nicolás Tobón, its manager, reveals how he will do it

The Makro super wholesale store, which in September will celebrate 30 years since the opening of its first store, located in the Sevillana sector in southern Bogotá, is ready to give the 'fight' for the family consumer segment, without abandoning, of course, the essence of the business that has distinguished it for decades, attention to the Horeca sector (hotels, restaurants, casinos, clubs, industries, marketers, institutions and shopkeepers) in which it has a portfolio of 1,500 clients.

They have been preparing for this for six years, when they decided to eliminate the membership (2019) that their clients required to access the wholesale prices offered by purchase volumes. With this came a remodeling plan for its 21 stores throughout the country, which is 80 percent advanced, the expansion of its product portfolio to more than 13,000 brands and the possibility, now, that Colombian families can access this variety of products in large and small sizes, by unit or quantity, with the benefit of a better price, given that the store acquires the merchandise in large volumes.

This strategy is condensed in its new campaign 'Makro is also Mikro', which will be complemented by the resumption of its expansion plan in the country, which includes reaching cities where it is not yet present or opening new stores in markets where there is still space, such as Bogotá.

EL TIEMPO spoke with Nicolás Tobón, Executive Director of Makro Colombia, and this is what he had to say about the evolution of stores in the country:

Much of last year, almost eight months, was a period of contraction in consumption, with significant falls compared to 2023, but from September onwards, a different dynamic began to be seen in the market. We closed with the same level of sales as in 2024, which was quite commendable to the extent that there was a very significant recovery in the last quarter, a quarter with higher consumption, more consumer confidence and that was reflected in the business.

In addition, in 2024 there was a lot of expansion in some formats and segments, there were quite a few business openings and despite this we maintained our participation and even found opportunities, so in the end we believe that it was a positive year with sales of around 1.7 billion pesos.

We see a challenging market, but one with many opportunities, and it is in this economic context that we are launching our campaign 'Makro is also Mikro' , with which we want to tell consumers that we are not only a supplier business for large businesses and companies, but that we can take this proposal to families in the country. We see this as an opportunity at a time when consumers are smarter when it comes to buying and aim for what is good, pretty and cheap, and this is a proposal that meets that level of demand.

That is why our sales estimates for this year are for a growth of 9.7 percent. January and February have already met the estimates, the year started very well, we are experiencing double-digit growth, and we believe that with the announcement we are making to reach the end customer, we will have a good end to 2025.

We have a maxim: 'if it is useful for professionals to supply their business, to transform raw materials or to resell, it will also be useful for the final consumer (families). That is why we wanted to extend our proposal, for which we made some internal adjustments that included the elimination of the 'Macro Passport or membership', now you only need to register with your ID number and that's it.

In our assortment proposal we include new brands: leaders, second and third brands, but also own brands (Aro, M&C and Ternez), which today represent 25 percent of own sales. There is also the possibility of buying individual units, the customer can buy from packages or boxes of products or units. So I have savings on a unit, but also on quantity and that price benefit is what we are ultimately passing on to families with the advantage of having everything in the same space. In addition, every day we have special discount days on most of our portfolio, which includes more than 13,000 brands.

At that time, we have a presence in 16 cities with 21 stores. Now, we are starting the remodeling plan in 2019, even though the latest openings we have made already address the concept we are handling now: brighter spaces, wide aisles, modern shelves, assisted butcher shop, cafeteria, bakery and delicatessen, in other words, a value proposition that improves our customer's shopping experience. We have remodeled an average of two stores per year and we are 80 percent of the way through this process, which we hope to finish in two years and from then on reactivate our expansion plan.

The complete remodeling of a store costs us, on average, about 4 million dollars, about 16 billion pesos, but there are lighter remodeling projects, since they are spaces with sales areas of between 3,000 and 9,900 square meters, which can be in the order of a million dollars. Now a new store can cost us around 13 or 15 million dollars, including the land; a remodeling, between 1 and 4 million dollars. In 10 stores that we have remodeled, we have invested about 100 billion pesos.

We have studied areas in the country where we have the potential to open new stores, for example, the Coffee Belt, where we are currently only present in the Dosquebradas store. There are cities where we already have a presence, but we want to open new locations, such as in Bogotá where the potential is great; in Cartagena we also see an opportunity to have an additional store. This plan is planned to be reactivated as soon as the remodeling stage is completed. The idea is to open on average one or two stores per year, which implies an average investment of 30 million dollars including land, equipment and, of course, construction.

Makro's format is focused on supplying businesses, but this has been transformed in Latin America, seeking to also supply the final consumer, families. In countries like Brazil and Argentina, the final consumer's share of sales today exceeds 75 percent. In Colombia, this share is 44 percent, which is indicative of the growth potential that exists and the advantage is that this group of people who come and know the proposal, like it and stay, hence our campaign 'Makro is also Mikro' with which we seek to spread many more of these benefits, these benefits, the value proposition that we have for families, so that they see that here they can also protect their savings.

90 percent of our own-brand products are manufactured in Colombia. We are talking about around 2,700 products, the rest is imported. Now, the total product offering of all brands is 13,000.