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Peru: Discounter Mass expands to Chile

Discount Retail Chain Mass, owned by the Peruvian giant Intercorp and parent of the retail company InRetail, made its arrival in Chile official with the acquisition of Erbi and its 33 stores. With this operation, the conglomerate led by the Rodríguez-Pastor family was expected to enter the Chilean market with its hard discount model Mass, the same one that has been key in its expansion in Peru.


Since then, few details had transcended, beyond the registration in Chile of multiple brands, such as Mass, Proxi, Economart and 40 others, through its subsidiary Food Retail Chile. However, new signs have recently emerged about the company's next steps.


First location

The first Mass pilot is already opened in the streets of Santiago. It is located in Eliodoro Yañez, Providencia, where an Erbi supermarket used to be. The Mass chain has become Intercorp's workhorse in Peru, with its hard discount model.

Their motto is:

  • I am a low-price store.

How does it achieve this?

  • "Always keeping processes simple and costs low, I manage to have the best prices every day and close to your home"


Items from the Providencia store are on display on the shelves and many in the same factory cardboard boxes. There is still no presence of Peruvian own brands, but low-cost products from the Chilean market are offered, such as Grecco olive oil at $5,990 (250 ml) and Marvelkleen floor cleaner at $1,290 (liter). Everything indicates that they are not going to stay with this pilot or with the other 32 stores of Erbi (which on average have 233 m2).


Expansion

Advertisements have been placed looking for the rental of commercial premises to continue expanding. In addition to this, a new website with a Chilean domain of the Mass brand is active and looking for locations to open its stores. "If you have a place and you are looking to rent it, we want to meet you. Our tool allows you to send us the data quickly and easily, so that we can evaluate it quickly and efficiently," they say on their LinkedIn profile. And they add: "Help us paint Chile yellow!" It details the requirements for the premises: they must be more than 200 m², be located on the first floor of buildings or in projects under development, preferably on main avenues, residential neighborhoods, near universities, schools, bus stops, markets, minimarkets and areas of high pedestrian traffic. From Peru they see that the stores in Chile are better stocked, better operated than they were before.


Despite being a small format, Mass is happy to be close to customers' homes and the idea is to keep that format in operation here.


Aggressive growth

Intercorp's expansion strategy has been through acquisitions and organic growth (opening new stores from scratch, as greenfields). In 2016, the firm relaunched its Mass brand, focused on the discount format, which it has strongly promoted in recent times. While in 2019 they had 400 stores, they closed in 2024 with 1,250 points of sale. In the last conference call, Intercorp's CFO, Marcelo Ramos, confirmed that they will continue with the goal of opening around 300 Mass stores per year. So far by 2025 they have already opened 96 new stores.


In Chile, Ramos said: "We are preparing the company to open new stores in the second half of the year, perhaps some even earlier, but for now we are still at an early stage. "Asked about the expansion in Chile, Xbrein's CEO, Daniel Encina, who has advised Erbi and InRetail, was clear: "Everything indicates that it will be aggressive. Erbi has only 33 locations, and that number should at least increase fivefold in the short term. "On the other hand, a senior executive of the group confirmed that they do not rule out making new acquisitions in Chile, as well as in Ecuador where other companies of the group have recently opened such as Innova Schools and Promart.


Although InRetail has different business units, such as pharma or shopping malls, it is in the food segment where they see the greatest opportunities for expansion, especially under the hard discount model. "Food is the business unit that continues to grow the fastest. It already represents 56% of Inretail's revenues. And it seems to me that Mass is already representing 18% of food retail revenues," said Kallpa SAB's head of research, Marco Contreras. A competitive marketIntercorp's arrival takes place in a complex context. According to Feller Rate, the Chilean supermarket sector is "highly competitive" and is dominated by four major players that concentrate more than 90% of the market: Walmart (Lider), Cencosud (Jumbo and Santa Isabel), SMU (Unimarc) and Falabella (Tottus).


Daniel Encina says that, due to the strategic location of Erbi's stores, mainly in residential neighborhoods, Mass will compete directly with convenience stores such as Oxxo, Castaño, Pronto, Upa/Upita and AStop, which have more than 1,500 stores in Chile. It will also face small-format supermarkets such as Líder Express, Unimarc, Tottus and Santa Isabel. "In terms of supply, they have locations that are super transversal, that is, they are in ABC1 segments, but also in C2, C3 and D, so it has a location logic that is quite curious, because in the end they are very different demands and with offers that do not necessarily correspond," added Encina.


However, not everyone in the market welcomed the purchase of Erbi, especially by the neighboring country. "Unlike Peru, in Chile the modern channel is much more developed and saturated. It is a more difficult market to grow and with less margin to stand out," said Ricardo Vásquez, research associate at Seminario SAB.


What is certain is that according to experts, the evolution of the hard discount is closely linked to changes in consumer habits after the pandemic and the subsequent inflationary pressure, which – in the case of Peru – led consumers to prioritize proximity and convenience in their purchases, boosting discount stores.


In Chile, this format still maintains a low market share compared to traditional supermarket chains, although groups such as SMU have discount stores such as Mayorista and Super 10 chains, with stores of around 1,200 square meters, simpler and with less spending on operations that allows them to offer more attractive prices. In view of some industry sources InRetail's inorganic growth could come from a bigger fish to complement them: SMU.


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