Business View Magazine - November 2016

Business View Magazine - November 2016 53 co worked for Sol Price’s original retail company, Fed- Mart, and operated Costco with the values and type of culture that he learned from Sol. This common ap- proach to the managing of the business made it easier for the two companies to come together and become the leader in the industry.” PriceSmart got its start soon, thereafter. “In 1995, a separate company was started – PriceSmart – to fo- cus on developing membership warehouse clubs in smaller formats, internationally.” Naylon says. Some were skeptical that the business model would succeed in Central America. “A lot of people thought they were poor, developing countries, which in a way they were, but they also had a good, solid middle class who want- ed to get access to higher quality goods – primarily American-made merchandise and U.S. brands. Either they couldn’t get them down there, or they were very expensive.” PriceSmart was convinced that the markets were ready and that the model would work. “Our first opera- tion was in Panama City, Panama, in 1996,” Naylon relates, “and it went over very well. By 1999, we had started a massive expansion through Central Ameri- ca and the Caribbean. Between 1999 and 2001, we opened up an additional 17 club stores in seven dif- ferent countries. Today, we’re in 13 countries with 39 warehouse clubs in 22 different cities.” The countries where PriceSmart has a presence include: Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Pana- ma, Aruba, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominican Republic, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Co- lombia. PriceSmart’s headquarters are in San Diego, Califor- nia, but it also has a big presence in Miami, Florida. “Our main distribution center is here in Miami,” says Naylon. “We have a lot of executive management here, as well as most of our senior logistics people. We also have sizable, regional offices in Costa Rica, Panama, Trinidad, and Bogotá, and then smaller offices in some of the other countries.” PriceSmart employs about 8,000 people with about 95 percent of them outside AT A GLANCE WHO: PriceSmart WHAT: An operator of membership-based ware- house clubs in Latin America and the Caribbean WHERE: Headquarters in San Diego, California WEBSITE : www.shop.pricesmart.com