New Makro Warehouse store near El Poblado - Medellin Living

Makro Opens New Warehouse Store in Medellín Near El Poblado

March 24, 2016 By Jeff 6 Comments

Makro recently opened a new warehouse store in Medellín near El Poblado, the company’s second store in the city.  The new store is located a few minutes walk from the Poblado metro station.
The new store sells primarily groceries with many items selling for substantially cheaper prices than can be found in Exito or Jumbo.
In fact many restaurants, hotels and other businesses in the city buy from Makro due to the low prices in large, wholesale size packages.  The store also sells to individuals and families.
I visited the new warehouse store a few days after it opened and I was impressed at many of the low prices I saw.

The front of the new Makro store

What is Makro?

Makro is part of the Dutch SHV Group, which is a holding company that also owns a gas company, financial company, recycling firm, oil producing company as well as the Makro chain of warehouse stores.
Makro started its activities in Amsterdam, the Netherlands in 1968. The warehouse store concept of the company was successfully introduced for the first time in Latin America in Brazil in 1972.
In 1989 the company started operations in Asia with the opening of its first store in Bangkok, Thailand. In 1997 the group sold its stake in Makro Europe but still owns Makro operations in Latin America and Asia.
In Latin America, Makro has over 150 stores including 78 stores in Brazil, 37 stores in Venezuela, 20 stores in Argentina, 17 stores in Colombia and seven stores in Peru.
In Colombia, Makro has stores in 12 Colombian cities with a total of 17 stores, which are sized at between 4,000 and 9,900 square meters each.  The newest store in Medellín is expected to support 80 direct and 70 indirect jobs.

The fruits and vegitables section

What Does Makro Sell?

Warehouse stores are able to keep prices low due to the no-frills format of the stores. When I was walking around the new warehouse store I overheard several Colombians saying, “tan barato” (so cheap).
Makro sells grocery items in well over half of the large warehouse store. Many of the grocery items are in large, wholesale size packages. The store also sells some electronics and appliances as well as items for the home and offices.
The store has a lot of familiar Colombian/South American brands as well as a number of imported items. There are fewer imported items to be found at Makro than are found at PriceSmart.

The alcohol aisle

What About Pricing ?

Pricing in general in Makro is lower than the pricing you will find in Exito or Jumbo for the same items but you may need to buy larger size packages in Makro.
To compare pricing I surveyed the pricing of 14 different items in both the new Makro store and the Exito store in the Mayorca mall in Sabaneta and here are the results:

Comparing prices between Makro and Exito

Out of the 14 items I surveyed, only one was not cheaper than in Exito – Aguardiente was the same price in both stores. The average savings of the 14 items I surveyed was 23 percent.
By comparing pricing by quantity between the stores you can find many items in the new Makro that are at least 30 percent cheaper than in Exito. So if you do a lot of cooking you can save substantially by shopping at Makro.

One of the grocery aisles

What Does the Membership Cost?

Makro doesn’t charge a fee for its membership, unlike PriceSmart, which charges 65,000 pesos per year.
It took me only a few minutes and it was painless to sign up for a membership and get a Pasaporte Makro card, they just want to see your ID and also fill out a short form with your ID number, address and phone numbers.

The spices section

Where is the New Makro Located?

The new Makro is located about a four-minute walk west from the Poblado metro station, it’s across the river in an industrial area located in Guayabal. This is a safe area to walk during the day, as there are many pedestrians in the area going to/from the metro station.
The address of the new Makro store is Calle 10 # 50-171, which you can give to any taxi driver to get to the store.  It is also easy to catch a taxi on the street outside the store.
The company reportedly chose the location of the new store to be close to El Pobaldo as well as being close to a metro station.

The checkout lines

The Bottom Line

The new Makro warehouse store near El Poblado was pretty busy when I went on the first weekend after it opened with many people there checking out the new store.
The store had several checkout lines open so it was quick to checkout. I noticed several customers checking out with pretty full baskets.
The new Makro is better located than the PriceSmart that opened in December 2014. The new store is more conveniently located as it is close to the Poblado metro station making it easy to get to.
I expect the new store will be popular based on what I saw in my initial visit with some good prices to be found and a wide selection of products.
I used to shop at the first Makro in Medellín located near the Suramericana metro station when I lived in Estadio over five years ago. But when I moved to Belén and now Sabaneta it was no longer convenient to shop at the first Makro – the new store is more conveniently located.