• The top online stores in the Food & Personal Care segment in Colombia are Exito, Tiendas Jumbo (Cencosud), Falabella, and Carulla.

• Food & Personal Care accounts for the smallest segment in e-commerce/online shopping in Colombia at 12%.
•  Exito (Colombia’s major grocery store) and Falabella are among the top companies helping Colombians transition to online shopping.
•  Discount stores have increased market share and continue opening outlets throughout Colombia. They are cheaper than most grocery chains and offer wide private label portfolios.

The Top 5 Food Retailers in Colombia (by Sales; $ million)

• Grupo Exito $18,632 
• Olimpica $2,073 
• Alkosto $1,955 
• D1 $1,284
• Cencosud $1,277 

Pain Points

•  Long delivery times and payment issues are common issues encountered in e-commerce in Colombia.
• A lack of stable Internet access also prevents many Colombians from shopping online.
• E-commerce providers are also concerned with the security of online payments.
•  57% of Colombian e-commerce users prefer to pay via cash on delivery (COD), due to low credit card penetration rates in Colombia. However, PayU, a digital payment system, is also increasingly being used.

Grupo Exito

• Grupo Éxito represents Carulla and Carulla FreshMarket.
• Carulla is the premium supermarket brand, which offers a wide range of food products and artisan goods. It has 100 stores in Colombia.
• Carulla Fresh Market also targets middle to upper-class shoppers and focuses on healthy, homemade, and fresh products for customers looking for high-quality food.
•  Grupo Exito has also transformed some Carulla supermarkets into Carulla Fresh Market to meet consumers’ demands.
• Grupo Exito is also working on improving shopper experience and integrating offline and on-line platforms.

Summary

• For the initial hour, we tried identifying as much of the requested information as possible. We were mainly able to identify insights on the top food retailers in Colombia in general, as insights specific to Bogota appear limited. Also, insights specific to the growth and market size of premium food in Bogota were not immediately available in this search.

• However, we found that Exito offers premium options through brands such as Carulla. We also found that discount stores have increased market share, which indicates some competition with premium grocery brands. We also found insights on pain points relevant to e-commerce (in general), but insights specific to pain points related to the availability of premium goods also appeared limited.
• The research also indicates that the online food segment in Colombia is still small and Exito (Carulla) appears to be one of the leading players in the online market.
• We were unable to immediately determine if the other top retailers identified also offer premium or discount goods, such as Exito, however, we can pursue more research on this if this is of interest.
• Feel free to add or select an option below.