PriceSmart the giant supermarket chain of membership shopping is expanding more and more in Central America. Right now, PriceSmart has several branches in many countries of Central America and the Caribbean such as: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Aruba, Barbados, Dominican Republic and Jamaica just to mention a few. Just in Costa Rica the supermarket has 4 establishments. This Wednesday, October 1st, the company has made a press release announcing that PriceSmart has has entered into agreements to acquire properties in Costa Rica and Panama; these properties will be used for the construction of new PriceSmart Warehouse Clubs and the development of adjoining Commercial Centers.
In Costa Rica, property acquisition has already begun: the company acquired 21,576 square metres of real estate in Alajuela, Costa Ricawhere a new PriceSmart Warehouse Club will be built to be the fifth in Costa Rica. This new facility is expected to open in the spring of 2009.
This type of membership shopping started business more than 10 years ago and started growing more and more over the years. PriceSmart offers great quality products such as electronic, computers, health care, furniture, automotive items and sporting goods among others. Costa Rica families are usually big and purchasing items in big quantities is normal and necessary, PriceSmart offers this choice by providing great prices for big quantities. Also, Costa Rica properties in locations where the main target customers reside are still easy to acquire, therefore the decision was not hard to make.
I have no information in whether or not there is going to be a PriceSmart in Guanacaste so far, I will assume they may be discussing the possibility of acquiring also property in Guanacaste due to the huge development of the area. Guanacaste has grown so much in the past few years it will actually be a smart move to include the area on their list of property acquisition.
