Free market took advantage of the celebration of its 25th anniversary This Wednesday for announce that it will invest US$75 million in the construction of a new distribution center, of 56,000 square meters and will be located next to the Central Market. The ecommerce giant estimates to generate about 2,300 jobs.
The company celebrated its 25th anniversary as the leading online commerce platform in Latin America and Argentina. In the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Saavedra, the Argentine unicorn presented some hard data on its business over more than two decades and also the creation of a new operations center, which is why it invited the president to the meeting. Javier Milei.
The announcement was made by Ariel Szarfesteijnpresident of ecommerce for Mercado Libre for Latin America, at a press conference held minutes before Milei’s visit to the company’s headquarters, where he was received by Marcos Galperín, CEO of the company.
According to Szarfesteijn, the announced project is similar to the current distribution centre that was opened in 2019 and, once it is operational, at the end of 2025, There will be 2,300 jobs created, additional to the 2,400 people who currently work there.
He also assured that the new Storage Center in the Central Market will strengthen its logistics network to offer faster shipping to its users, double daily product processing capacity and increase package storage space for small and medium-sized businesses.
“This investment It will allow us to develop new business verticals and, at the same time, significantly increase the number of fast and secure shipments to offer the best buying and selling experience to our millions of users.“We continue to invest in the consolidation of e-commerce in the country and we want to be a key player in this growth in the coming years,” said Szarfsztejn.
And he added that the objective is double capacity, dispatch 400,000 items per day and “allow more SMEs to reach the entire country, thereby improving efficiency and speed in shipments.”
“We are happy and honored to accompany Free market with this new investment. It is a development with the highest international standards of quality and sustainability. We are greatly motivated to contribute to the creation of youth employment, the development of logistics infrastructure and the growth of the country. And we hope to continue investing with them in the development of Argentina,” he said. Ramiro Molina, General Manager of Plaza Logística, the concessionaire of the space in the Central Market.
Molina also added that this project not only represents a significant advance for Mercado Libre, but is also an investment in the future of Argentina. “We are Committed to the long term, always seeking to create value and growth opportunitiesboth for our operations and for the country,” he said.
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It is worth remembering that Plaza Logística began operating in 2009 and expanded its surface area from 45,000 square meters to 580,000 in these years. Currently, it has more than 1 million square meters of logistics infrastructure in total. And it operates seven parks nationwide, distributed between the province and the City of Buenos Aires (the Central Market, plus three in the northern zone and the rest in the southern zone).
According to Molina, Plaza Logística seeks to promote the future of logistics and e-commerce and allow, on a daily basis, more people to shop online. Through its partnership with leading companies and thanks to investment in infrastructure and the adoption of new technologies, it develops state-of-the-art storage and distribution centres that, due to their strategic location, “allow to shorten the last mile”.
Mercado Libre: Competition with Amazon and progress in more than two decades
“In the past, cell phones were heavy, we listened to music on CDs and sent documents by fax. Mercado Libre was born when the only way to buy was to go to stores, walking long distances to look for prices, standing in lines and paying in cash,” He noted a video that was presented to the press during the birthday celebration of the company headed by Galperin.
“Today, we celebrate 25 years of transforming commerce and financial services throughout Latin America, bringing our services from north to south, from east to west, to every corner of the region. In these 25 years, we have democratized commerce and transformed lives with technology. We are proud to see how we have grown and how we continue to innovate,” he added.
In this context, according to Halloween party, Mercado Libre has become the largest company in terms of market capitalization in Latin America, with 75,000 direct employees. “The world continues to change and we are excited about what is coming,” he said.
When asked about competition with other retail giants, the Mercado Libre representative responded that “We love to compete, and even more so, against the best in the world.” “Definitely, if there is something that has done us good in our history, it is competing with Amazon in Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Colombia. It demands that we give our best, makes us better and, thanks to that, we create more value for our buyers, our sellers and our users. So, we are very happy about that.”he concluded.
The compliments between Milei and Galperin
The President Javier Milei He arrived at the Mercado Libre offices in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Saavedra around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, where he was received by the company’s founder and CEO, Marcos Galperín. Both celebrated the investment that the Argentine unicorn had made in the country.
The CEO of the firm thanked Milei for his presence and highlighted the possibility of contributing to the national project that Milei promotes and related it to the name of his company Mercado Libre. The president, for his part, assured that Galperín “He is a great leader, he is the entrepreneur and the businessman with a wealth of capital that, consequently, capitalizes the economic economy”.
Source: Ambito
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