By Claudia Carrivale
prensa@editoracycargentina.com.ar

Alberto Chaia tells us the history of the family business for the sale of appliances that was born with a small place in Villa Crespo, became a pioneer of online sales, and today, with the evergreen effort and perseverance, it projects the expansion in new markets.

When does the story of Uncle Musa start?

In 93 we started with a very small place in the Villa Crespo neighborhood, in Scalabrini Ortiz 397. I came from the textile item, and my father -in -law was of the appliance, so he brought me a little closer to this. It was very hard at the beginning with a single employee. Soon they opened an appliance store in front, and that was a very strong threat, then we opened a new place in front of them, and thus we stayed with two stores in the same block to compete. That's when Sandra joined, my wife. There were many hours that we put this company from the beginning, a lot of energy, and above all a lot of perseverance.

A start at pure proof and strategy.

Yes, because then we opened a furniture in the same block, so we had three places against one. We put a lot of strength there. The competition place ended up closing, and there we decided to close the corner place, the initial one, and we stayed with the two who were in front of each other. Then we opened a place in Palermo Soho that was called digital zone, beautiful local, but it was complicated, there were no products, they were very pemium products, so we closed it and opened the premises of Villa Urquiza and Paternal.

How did they go from being the house of appliances in a capital neighborhood to be a leading player at the national level?

In 2002, one day a boy enters the premises and tells us: I'm from Mercado Libre (ML), are you interested in selling products through a digital platform? And I say good, we tried. ML had a year and a half of existence and was all very manual, so we started publishing two products, and they were sold immediately. That was really an adventure, it is as if today I say: we are going out a weekend to the moon.
A month after that we received a call from a person from Australia who wanted to give a refrigerator to his mother for Mother's Day. And I thought what does anyone call me from Australia to sell a refrigerator and take it to Lanús? That broke my head and said: it's here. We realized that we could reach everywhere, and we got little by what was at that time the e-commerce channel. Every time ML took out a new tool (shipping market, payments market, etc.) tried it with us.
Currently our sales channels are our website, ML, the premises, and we are entering other platforms of the online channel in different Marketplace.

How many places do you have today and what do you think is the differential of Uncle Musa?

We have four stores and a point of pick up: Paternal, Villa Urquiza, the two of Villa Crespo and Caballito. And of course, the arrival throughout the country with online sales. We work everything that is appliances, furniture, camping, free time, taps, and everything that is needed in a home. We also have imports of products related to our activity.
We always try to differentiate ourselves, to reach the client with the best price and with the delivery as quickly as possible, and that made us reach more people. While today is normal, the delivery of the product in the day or 24 hours, that did not exist and that was an added value of our service. Our strength is logistics, to be able to reach the whole country with all our products, always with the best market price. We do not have great advertising, but there is always someone who bought us.

How did the celebrations of these 30 years organize?

It was an idea of Sandra, who promoted the entire organization of the celebrations. We did a party in Palacio Alsina, the idea was to return to our suppliers, which some are already friends, the support we received from them during these 30 years, pamper them a little for all the difficult conversations that sometimes you have to have. In a few days there will be another party for employees and former employees. We wanted to thank our collaborators and employees, who day by day have a very big commitment for this to work. We are a very small structure but we are full all day.

What projection do you have for the next few years?

Today we are in a process of professionalization of the company in every way. We have a new director who is the one who was at our time in the last ten years. We add a new commercial manager, and a marketing manager. I think that 2024 will be a year to accommodate and order, and expect 2025 to be better if things are going well. And from then on with a new structure, there are always desire for new projects, we have in mind expand to new markets in Latin America, it can be Chile, Mexico, Uruguay. We come step by step.

A family good name

"My dad was called Moses and said" muse. "Before the biggest people were told" uncle, "and many people called him that, he was the uncle, and his name in Arab We had nothing at that time, and it was like this.