Super Metro expands to Bogo City

CEBU, Philippines - A distinctive mix of aggressive organizational spirit and accommodating local government is firing up the Gaisano-led Super Metro chain in tapping the rarely-explored market in Bogo City, 100 kilometers away from the provincial capital.

Thousands of shoppers flocked on Tuesday to the new Super Metro Bogo City as company officials formally opened the first store with a hypermarket concept in northern Cebu.

The two-storey store spans a total floor area of 3,500 square meters, providing employment to over 250 Cebuanos within the area.

Aggressive efforts

Officials said the opening of Super Metro in the city will jumpstart the company's series of aggressive efforts to expand to many other key areas in the Philippines as they extensively develop the "hypermarket concept" within their next few years of operations.

"By year-end, Super Metro will have opened six hypermarkets in the country, particularly  in the cities of Bacolod, Bogo, Cebu and Quezon," said Metro Supermarket  director Eric Poiret.

On the first week of August alone, another Super Metro store will open its doors to the public in Lapu-Lapu City. This will be followed by the opening of their branches in Mambaling, Colon and Carcar City.

Poiret said the bustling retail scene in Cebu complemented with the dynamism of Cebuanos as customers provides a conducive platform which allows them to capitalize on the highly-interactive market here.

"I hope our customers see that our items are priced quite reasonably sound and cheaper than what our competitors are offering," he added.

With their competitive pricing and attempt to inject a little fashion twist to the regular food and dry goods they sell, they are now hoping to own a big chunk of the market with some optimistic outlook.

They also said that Bogo City hosts new subdivisions and is home to a large throng of middle-income professionals, proofs that a sleeping market actually exists there, only waiting to be tapped.

Store formats

Over the recent years, Super Metro has been exclusively introducing three basic store formats: the fresh and easy, supermarket and hypermarket.

A Super Metro fresh and easy store is a sort of a community or neighborhood store where most of the goods sold are already pre-packed.

The supermarket format, meanwhile, promotes lifestyle shopping, while a hypermarket is described as a "larger than life" concept where shoppers are envisioned to just "grab, grab, grab" items in retail or wholesale.

Unlike Super Metro supermarkets which are comprised of 80 percent food merchandise and 20 percent non-food items, only 60 percent of what's being sold in hypermarkets are food products. The remaining products are dry goods and general merchandise which include fashion items, furniture and household appliances, to name a few.

"Everything is under one roof. You shop, pay and go. We have great discounts and volume-oriented deals for everyone," Poiret invited the public.

Investor-friendly

At the ribbon-cutting rites, Bogo City Mayor Celestino Martinez Jr. said it has been the goal of his administration to ensure that the city policies are investor-friendly in order to project to investors a more inviting image.

"We already have written tax incentives for them (investors); anything that's not written yet we will be very glad to discuss it with them," he said.

The city mayor also said the expansion of Polambato port, albeit still at the groundworks, will further boost the local economy which heavily relies on trading and retail, apart from agriculture.

Martinez also considered the new development as a  viable venture for Super Metro because according to him, Bogo should not be taken or looked at as a single entity alone, but rather a metro surrounded by many other towns that a `re potential market extensions.

"Bogo is like the drop-off point for goods, even those coming from neighboring islands and provinces. It's where people in the north buy and sell their products," he said. (FREEMAN)