TOP 10 OPERATORS 2018 9: DUTY FREE AMERICAS (DFA)
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DFA store at Haiti’s international airport.
“We are trying to digitize the whole business. You can pre- order now with DFA in the US, but we are developing the capability and capacity to do something much bigger in a global network.”
Jonathan Cohen,
Paneco.com and Black CEO (DFA APAC)
travel retail business. At the time, Falic said he was just ‘looking’. TRBusiness asks Falic once again if
DFA is still just ‘looking’ in Europe… “We haven’t really found anything
big enough that we’d want. If we do find something that’s available – most things are tied up right now – then maybe we’d be a player. That
doesn’t mean that we’d win, but we’d try.” So, for now at least, DFA is
focusing on its Americas business whilst keeping its eyes out for new opportunities, which could include further, but reasonably small acquisitions. “Regarding acquisitions, we’ll do it if we see something that we believe in,” he confirms.
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DFA Group sets its sights on e-commerce expansion
Alcohol e-commerce platform Paneco. com can be used as springboard to conquer new shopping categories and harness consumer loyalty in travel retail, Duty Free Americas (DFA) owner Falic Group has told TRBusiness. Devised by DFA President Leon Falic
and launched in December 2015, the online alcohol delivery service has grown its reach into domestic markets in LATAM, Europe and Asia – including in Colombia, Panama, Holland, Israel and Singapore. Now, the group is scaling up
“The data that we have is a goldmine,” revealed
Paneco.com and Black CEO (DFA APAC) Jonathan Cohen. “We can apply some of this into our duty free
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Contact:
janice@trbusiness.com
investment by growing its research and development team into another major Asian market to build stronger IT capabilities – and open up new markets.
72 TOP 10 OPERATORS
There is sizeable potential to cross-fertilise customer data harvested from Paneco. com with DFA’s existing travel retail business on a global scale.
business; one possibility is to leverage on the data and link between those passengers who bought online in the domestic market and proceed to communicate with them in travel retail.” “We are trying to digitize the whole
business. You can pre-order now with DFA in the US, but we are developing the capability and capacity to do something much bigger in a global network.”
Paneco.com, which operates as a
B2C website in domestic markets, sells 1,000s of skus covering liquor, wines, spirits, champagne and beer available for complimentary next day delivery or express same-day delivery ($5 surcharge).
OCTOBER 2018
‘Important to add value’ Earlier this year the company bought out its rival northern border operator Pac Can Duty Free, which was running the store in front of DFA’s in Blaine California. “I don’t want to buy anything
where we don’t add value,” says Falic. “We’re looking for things that we can grow or add to or we can make better.”
On the topic of acquisitions, TRBusiness reminded Falic of a news story published on
TRBusiness.com last year about Lotte Duty Free proposing to buy DFA from him and his brothers who co-own the business. At the time, Falic was insistent that the company was not for sale. TRBusiness asks Falic if the company
has changed its mind at all since 2017. “We don’t have a ‘For Sale’ sign
outside, but if someone comes to buy us and gives us the right amount of money we’ll consider it. But we’re young and we’re still very ambitious and we still feel like we can add a lot more value. “Very few players have what we
have. We do have some concessions, but then we have a lot of property, a lot of land and a lot of border business that we own. “We own gas stations, we
own hotels at some of our borders, we have the duty free business, we have the news & gifts business, we have the food & beverage business, we have specialty stores. “We have a lot of good contracts;
long contracts, so it’s very hard to put a number on something which is so valuable to us. “We’re still going to grow and
we’re still going to add a lot more value. So if someone wants to buy us they’re going to have to write a big cheque.
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