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Gala-Sears (Grandes ALmacenes de América-Sears) was the subsidiary of
On May 20, 1980, the company "Grandes Almacenes de América Gala Limitada" (Gala Ltda.) was constituted, formed by "Sociedad Comercial Fontana Limitada" (linked to the businessman Manuel Ibáñez Ojeda, owner of the supermarket chain Almac and later founder of Distribución & Servicio), "Compañía de Inversiones Golfo Pérsico S.A.", and Jaime Francos Ringer (who subsequently would form the company "Importadora y Comercializadora Francos Limitada"). Its initial capital was of 1 million dollars.
In December 1981, "Comercializadora de Bienes y Servicios de Grandes Tiendas Sociedad Limitada" joined the company. On May 11, 1982, the company was incorporated.
Among the novelties presented by Gala-Sears at the time of its opening in Parque Arauco was the distribution of its sections inside the store, generating a hexagonal arrangement that contained the storage spaces in the 4 corners generated by said form within the enclosure built in order to favor a quick replacement of the products; it also introduced the 
The store —from May 1983 called simply "Gala", after Sears decided to withdraw from the commercial society— closed its doors definitively on September 16, 1983 because it went bankrupt and did not capture the taste and custom of the Chilean consumer in those years; also, the company was in retreat from the Latin American market. In October of that year Gala disappeared from the retail scene and replaced by Falabella, which acquired the department store chain as a strategy to reach upper-class.
* Parque Arauco Shopping Center
* Satellite stores:
** Santiago Centro: San Antonio 53-L, store 100-C
** Providencia: Providencia Avenue 2178
** Ñuñoa: Irarrázaval 2353
** Plaza Lyon: Nueva Providencia 2235, store 105
Sears Roebuck
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
in Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
, which formally began operations on April 2, 1982, the day after the opening of Mall Parque Arauco
Parque Arauco is the third largest Chilean shopping malls company, after Cencosud's malls division and Mall Plaza the S.A.C.I. Falabella shopping malls subsidiary. It is headquartered in Santiago. The company manages shopping malls in Chile, Per ...
. It was one of the first international commercial ventures that retired from the country after few years of failures and economic losses.
History
On May 20, 1980, the company "Grandes Almacenes de América Gala Limitada" (Gala Ltda.) was constituted, formed by "Sociedad Comercial Fontana Limitada" (linked to the businessman Manuel Ibáñez Ojeda, owner of the supermarket chain Almac and later founder of Distribución & Servicio), "Compañía de Inversiones Golfo Pérsico S.A.", and Jaime Francos Ringer (who subsequently would form the company "Importadora y Comercializadora Francos Limitada"). Its initial capital was of 1 million dollars.
In December 1981, "Comercializadora de Bienes y Servicios de Grandes Tiendas Sociedad Limitada" joined the company. On May 11, 1982, the company was incorporated.
Among the novelties presented by Gala-Sears at the time of its opening in Parque Arauco was the distribution of its sections inside the store, generating a hexagonal arrangement that contained the storage spaces in the 4 corners generated by said form within the enclosure built in order to favor a quick replacement of the products; it also introduced the mail order
Mail order is the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote methods such as:
* Sending an order form in the mail
* Placing a telephone call
* Placing ...
catalog through the possibility that customers acquired the US catalog of Sears to make their purchases at home, and presented one of the first department store credit cards in Chile. During the following months it opened some stores —called «satellites»— of smaller surface and variety of products, installed in the center of Santiago, Providencia and Ñuñoa
Ñuñoa (; from Mapudungun ''Ñuñohue'', "place of yellow flowers") is a commune of the Northeastern zone of Santiago, in the Santiago Metropolitan Region of Chile. According to the 2021 Urban Life Quality Index (ICVU), it is considered the fou ...
; all of them were closing at the beginning of 1983, leaving only the store of the Parque Arauco shopping center; the store at Plaza Lyon was later replaced by Almacenes París.
The store —from May 1983 called simply "Gala", after Sears decided to withdraw from the commercial society— closed its doors definitively on September 16, 1983 because it went bankrupt and did not capture the taste and custom of the Chilean consumer in those years; also, the company was in retreat from the Latin American market. In October of that year Gala disappeared from the retail scene and replaced by Falabella, which acquired the department store chain as a strategy to reach upper-class.
Stores
* Parque Arauco Shopping Center
* Satellite stores:
** Santiago Centro: San Antonio 53-L, store 100-C
** Providencia: Providencia Avenue 2178
** Ñuñoa: Irarrázaval 2353
** Plaza Lyon: Nueva Providencia 2235, store 105
References
External links
{{commonscat Defunct department stores Department stores of Chile Retail companies established in 1980 Retail companies disestablished in 1983 Sears Holdings