Mercado Libre’s commitment to promoting logistics from Antioquia began with the service center inaugurated in October 2020 near the Olaya Herrera airport, in the midst of a health emergency, but business dynamics led the e-commerce company to have a new distribution center, located in the south of the metropolitan area.
The 3,500-square-meter complex comes to strengthen and consolidate the logistics operation in the region and throughout the country for the next five years, commented Santiago Hernández, the company’s Transportation manager, yesterday during the presentation of the facilities to the media.
“We believe that speed is very important for customers and the faster we serve them, the sooner they will buy in electronic commerce, so this center will allow us to process more than 15,000 packages a day,” said Hernández, who highlighted that in yesterday 11,000 were dispatched.
In this way, Mercado Libre directly assumed the operation that was outsourced to DHL, given the growth observed in the demand of electronic commerce users in the Antioquia territory.
“Here we have created around 200 direct and indirect jobs, between operational staff, drivers and the administrative team. And about 10% of the packages are delivered the same day, and the rest between 24 and 48 hours. The intention is to continue accelerating that speed to meet the needs of users,” added the manager.
This distribution center, in which some US$350,000 was invested, is Mercado Libre’s second largest in the country, after the one in Bogotá, which has some 50,000 square meters and performs storage functions.
The company also has distribution centers in Cali, Tunja, Pereira, Bucaramanga, Barranquilla, and Cartagena. One of the novelties of La Estrella is that it has a modern fleet of electric vehicles, which reduces CO2 emissions per kilometer traveled by between 50% and 70%, with which it seeks to directly serve more than ten populations of Antioquia.
The operation
During the early morning the rhythm is frantic, as the staff orders and distributes the packages that arrive at the complex from different parts of Colombia, and through the model cross-border trade products are being received from the United States and China.
“Mercado Libre users are in all social strata of Medellín. It ranges from someone who needs items for the baby, to the owner of a car that requires a battery. This is in line with our purpose of democratizing electronic commerce,” said Daniel Rodríguez, supervisor of the Mercado Libre distribution center in La Estrella.
Regarding the location of the complex in this population in the south of the metropolitan area, it was indicated that it is one of the poles of high development in terms of logistics given the connectivity, the offer of industrial parks and the ease of access to the capital of Antioquia and other towns in Aburrá.
“We have invested in this part of Antioquia because we see the potential that this can have in the progress and growth of the region. We want to contribute, generate trust and connect local businesses with all of Colombia”, insisted Hernández.
other bets
In Medellín, Mercado Libre is making significant efforts to promote technology, education, and entrepreneurship in order to achieve social transformation in the region. In this context, an Innovation, Technology and Product Center was made available to Antioquians, which currently strengthens local talent and generates employment (see To learn more).
This has been running for more than a year and has promoted more than 800 job positions in areas such as software development, user experience design, cybersecurity, machine learning and data analysis.
From the IT Center, regional impact products are developed for all Mercado Libre business units. These include solutions in electronic commerce and financial services.
Mercado Libre is also committed to exporting national talent through the participation of its collaborators in projects it leads in other countries such as Brazil, Argentina or Mexico. In this way, the company strengthens its objective of promoting the generation of new ventures and quality employment in Latin America.
US$350.000
was Mercado Libre’s investment in its distribution center in La Estrella.
200 jobs were generated by the complex, located in the south of Valle de Aburrá.