Line graph comparing Google Search Volume in Chile for Falabella, Yapo.cl, and Mercado Libre, showing Falabella's continued strength against online competitors | Sources: Google Trends, Latinometrics
Chile's 130 Year-Old Falabella Remains Strong Against Online Competitors

Falabella has come a long way since starting as a small tailor shop in Santiago, Chile, in 1889. The shop was founded by Italian immigrant Salvatore Falabella. In the 1960s, the company began an expansion plan across Chile, and in 1980 introduced Chile’s first credit card. Credit cards wouldn’t be its last visionary business strategy; in 1999, falabella.com was registered, and the company began its e-commerce shop. The timing was perfect because Argentinian Mercado Libre, founded in the same year, is Latin America’s most successful e-commerce company, and it had its sight set on Chile.

As far as Google Trends data is available, ‘falabella’ has been searched more than twice as much as ‘mercado libre’ in Chile. In 2011, the free marketplace Yapo was founded (similar to Craigslist), and Google’s data suggests that it took Chile by storm, reaching its peak in 2016. Yapo’s traffic has come back to earth, but getting more search volume than Falabella and Mercado Libre for some of its years is remarkable. According to financial statements, Falabella’s parent company has 65K employees, and Mercado Libre has 16K. LinkedIn says Yapo has only 125 employees.

Falabella’s impressive operation doesn’t stop in Chile, and it doesn’t stop in retail either. At the end of last year, the parent company opened its 85th Tottu supermarket in Peru. It also opened its 9th Sodimac location in Mexico, a home improvement store that competes with Home Depot. Its financial branch, Banco Falabella, had 1.3M active credit cards in Colombia.

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