… MegaMart not worried about competition, says CEO
MEGAMART’S chief executive officer, Gassan Azan, appears unperturbed by the impending opening of PriceSmart Membership Shopping that will compete directly with his market for customers.
“Finally, we are happy to have competition,” he told the Observer. “We are only sorry it wasn’t taken up earlier by locals. It is a case where we have to face foreign competition.”
MegaMart, said Azan, already set a benchmark.
But at the same time, Azan said it is still early days yet to tell whether PriceSmart is “really a competitor”.
“It’s very early to tell what the store is like. I haven’t been inside to see, so it is hard to say it is a competitor. We would have to evaluate it when the time comes,” he said.
In 1999, Azan and a group of investors opened up the 68,000 square-foot MegaMart variety superstore in Portmore, St Catherine — billing it as Jamaica’s first Wholesale Membership Club.
The store features a wide range of consumer items and has a food court, tyre centre, pharmacy, photo centre and bakery, as well as a branch of Western Union. It later opened its doors to non-members in 2001.