The largest store in the world was inaugurated in the last Christmas season in Brazil by the retail chain “Casas Bahia”. The seasonal store, which remained open during the month of December 2004, had 492 thousand square feet (140 thousand square meters) of total area, of which 170 thousand square feet (52 thousand square meters) for sales, with a parking lot for 10 thousand vehicles, and it was installed at the Anhembi Pavilion, which is usually employed for large events, fairs and expositions, and is located in the city of São Paulo in the Southeast of Brazil.
The mega store, which was called “Super Casas Bahia”, has entered the Guinness Book of World Records. It has reached sales of US$ 18 Million, with a daily average of US$ 600 thousand, and it has received over 2 Million consumers in 30 days. The major manufacturers in the segments of telecom, audio and video, computers, furniture, refrigerators, stoves, domestic appliances, hobbies (tools), textile products, toys and fitness have featured booths for demonstration and sales of their products with the support of 140 sites for credit services and 70 checkouts. Several kinds of services where also made available to the customers, like beauty parlors, health counseling, cultural activities, cybercafé, lanhouse, kindergarten, bowling alleys and model car tracks.
Spread throughout four sites around the pavilion, there were 18 fast food chains, 2 restaurants and 4 bars, with a capacity for 2 thousand persons. Over 1,200 employees were allocated for the operation, plus the sales promoters provided by over 150 manufacturers and suppliers for the demonstration of their products, with a total of over 8 thousand SKUs (stock keeping units).
The store chain “Casas Bahia” presently has 400 stores and is the largest retail chain in the field of electric appliances and furniture in Brazil, with sales of US$ 3 Billion in the fiscal year from January to December 2004, 50% up from 2003. According to estimates by the firm’s executives, the chain will have 1 thousand stores by the year 2010, with earnings of up to US$ 7 Billion.
The chain’s main target are the consumers in the C, D and E social classes, with sales on credit in 24 to 36 fixed monthly installments, with extremely high interest rates, but also with a great facility to obtain credit approval. Sales are realized through “carnês”, which are booklets for installment payments that are very common in Brazil. The consumers have to return to one of the chain’s stores every month in order to pay their monthly installments and when this happens they are persuaded by the salesmen to purchase still other items. The chain’s selling force, plus the back office crew, add up to a total of 32,500 employees. In the year 2002, the chain started sales through credit cards as well; these nowadays represent 20% of the total of sales. Financing directly to the consumer is realized with the chain’s own financing resources, and so is the whole logistics operation with one of largest distribution centers in the world and a fleet of over 2 thousand trucks.
The chain has a great power over the suppliers because the deals involve extremely high sales volumes. For example: One out of every five TV sets, and one out of every six cellphones sold in Brazil, were sold by “Casas Bahia” in 2004.
This shows the power of the Brazilian retail market.