History
The company was founded by Salvatore Falabella, an Italian Chilean immigrant, in 1889. It was originally a tailor's shop, but today has become the largest retailer in South America. The expansion of the company began in the 1960s, with the first store outside Santiago opened in Concepción. In 1980 Falabella created CMR, a credit card with 5.5 million customers. In the 1990s it began a process of internationalization and expanded its operations to Argentina, Peru (where it traded as Saga Falabella until 2018) and Colombia. Some of the celebrities who have appeared in its ads are Cecilia Bolocco, Valeria Mazza, Juanes, Kate Moss, Gisele Bündchen and Ricky Martin [8] [9] [10]
On May 17, 2007, Falabella agreed to merge with D & S to form the largest retail company in Chile, but a ruling of the Court of Defense of Free Competition on January 31, 2008, rejected the operation, giving as fundamental arguments that the merger would produce a huge change in the market structure, creating a company that would be the dominant player in integrated retail and all its segments and a substantial and lasting decrease in the conditions of competition of the market that would be detrimental to consumers. The same year, Falabella acquired 60% of the largest hardware store in Chile, Imperial.
In 2012, Subtel accepted the request made by Falabella to become a Mobile Virtual Operator inaugurating the service during the first quarter of 2012. In the second quarter of the same year, the chain opened another store in Bogotá, in the Titán Plaza Shopping Center.
In August 2018, it acquired 100% of the Linio Marketplace, [11] in order to accelerate its omnichannel and electronic commerce strategy.
In January 2019, the closing of Linio Ecuador and Panama was announced with the aim of focusing efforts in countries where it has strategic capabilities to improve the value proposition of its market platform.
During 2020, due to the pandemic, Falabella constantly supported the community with the program "Programa Haciendo Escuela", which since 1969 has been contributing comprehensively to the students and families of the schools it sponsors. In April of that year was adapted and “Haciendo Escuela en tu casa” was born, available to all children in Chile with educational content from the Mineduc and also with didactic and recreative material.
In that same month, Falabella Retail, together with Linio and Sodimac, made their websites available to microentrepreneurs affected by the Covid - 19 crisis. The new sellers were not charged sales commission for 3 months. In addition, they have received training to develop skills in the world of e-commerce.
Falabella Retail joined the “Fundación Artesanías de Chile” campaign “United by artisans”. This meant that the foundation was added as a seller, making visible the textile work, wood carving, basketry, pottery and goldsmithing of 2,300 artisans who make up the foundation.
Another example was the launch of Arte Falabella, which aims to democratize art and bring it closer to everyone. In October 2020 Espacio Fotografía was launched, with more than 300 commercially unpublished works by 39 emerging and established artists from Chile. The project was developed together with the Antenna Foundation, the Latin American Art curator, Matías Allende, and the advice of Paz Errázuriz, renowned Chilean photographer and 2017 National Art Award.
It was announced that Linio will be ceasing operations in Mexico for April 8, 2024 to focus on their collaboration with Soriana on their expansion of Sodimac and his target Falabella Soriana. [12] [13] [14]
Supermercados Gigante was a large supermarket chain in Mexico. The chain expanded north of the border as well, as it also had locations in predominantly working-class Mexican-American communities of the United States.
El Corte Inglés S.A., headquartered in Madrid, is the biggest department store group in Europe and ranks third worldwide. Its primary source of sales is from department stores, followed by internet sales. It is a family business, with most stock held by relatives of the deceased businessmen Ramon Areces Rodriguez and César Rodríguez González (1882–1966), and the Ramon Areces foundation.
Tiendas Comercial Mexicana S.A. de C.V., colloquially known as La Comercial and La Comer, was a Mexican hypermarket group that operated mainly in Mexico City and Central Mexico. It was founded in 1930 and operated by Controladora Comercial Mexicana. From 2016 to 2018 it was owned and operated by Soriana, which also owns Alprecio stores. Comercial Mexicana, including its different store formats, was the third-largest supermarket chain in Mexico as of 2014.
Organización Soriana is a Mexican public company and a major retailer in Mexico with more than 824 stores. Soriana is a grocery and department store retail chain headquartered in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The company is 100% capitalized in Mexico and has been publicly traded on the Mexican stock exchange, since 1987 under the symbol: "Soriana".
Alameda is a major railway station in Santiago, Chile, serving the south of the country, and is the city's primary and railway station, and is the only major railway station in Santiago after the closure of Mapocho, which used to cater trains to northern Chile. It is on the Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins, facing Matucana avenue.
Oxxo is a Mexican chain of convenience stores and gas stations, with over 21,000 stores across Latin America, as well as in the United States and parts of Europe. It is the largest chain of convenience stores in Latin America. Its headquarters are in Monterrey, Nuevo León.
Chedraui is a publicly traded Mexican grocery store and department store chain which also operates stores in the U.S. in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Nevada under the banner name El Super and stores in Texas under the banner name Fiesta Mart. It is traded on the Mexican Stock Exchange under the symbol CHEDRAUI.
Casa Ley is a Mexican grocery store chain based in Culiacán founded in 1954 by Juan Ley Fong. Most of its stores are located in western Mexico, in the states of Baja California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, and Baja California Sur. It is Mexico's largest privately held supermarket chain. For years, 49% of the chain was owned by American supermarket chain Safeway Inc., which later went to Albertsons Companies, Inc. after it acquired Safeway in 2015. In 2018, Albertsons divested its 49% share to Tenedora CL del Noroeste, ending the company's international operations.
Clubes City Club is the wholesale club of Mexican grocery store Soriana founded in 2002, in this same year it opened the first club in Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico, in Fundadores Square, that also has a Soriana store. As of 2024 it has 40 stores.
París, formerly known as Almacenes París, is a chain of department stores in Chile, owned by multinational Cencosud. It was a member of the International Association of Department Stores from 2000 to 2005.
Falabella is a Chilean multinational company. It is the largest retail company in Chile followed by Cencosud and one of the largest in Latin America. It operates its flagship Falabella department stores in addition to Mall Plaza shopping centers, Tottus hyper & supermarkets, Banco Falabella banks, and Sodimac home improvement centers. The company has 491 stores and 42 shopping malls. The stores are divided into 111 department stores branded as Falabella, 251 home improvement stores under the brand Sodimac and 129 supermarkets branded as Tottus. In Peru the company owned the Saga Falabella, listed in the Lima Stock Exchange. It was renamed to Falabella in 2018.
La Polar is the fourth largest retail company in Chile, behind Falabella, Paris S.A and Ripley S.A.
Grupo Famsa is a Mexican retail company that owns Famsa department stores, the company was one of the most important retail stores in Mexico. In 2023, the company has operations in Texas with 21 stores and 21 personal loan branches.
Sodimac Homecenter is a chain of home improvement stores in Chile. Besides Chile, there are stores in Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, and Brazil.
Mallplaza is a Chilean chain of malls operated in South America by Falabella.
Supermercados Internacionales HEB, S.A. de C.V. is the Mexican division of H-E-B, a private supermarket chain based in San Antonio, Texas, U.S. It competes mainly with Soriana, Walmart México, Bodega Aurrerá, S-Mart, Chedraui and Casa Ley.
Banco Falabella is a Chilean bank. Founded in 1998, It is headquartered in Las Condes, Chile. It is a subsidiary of S.A.C.I. Falabella and has branches in Chile, Peru, and Colombia.
Linio is one of the leading marketplaces in Latin America, with presence in five countries and offering more than four million products.
Gala-Sears was the subsidiary of Sears Roebuck in Chile, which formally began operations on April 2, 1982, the day after the opening of Mall Parque Arauco. It was one of the first international commercial ventures that retired from the country after few years of failures and economic losses.
