
Roatan is Used Clothes Giant Mega Important Location
Megapaca has brought dignity to discarded, donated, and used clothing. The store has also brought excitement and self esteem to shoppers who browse the aisles looking for inexpensive but attractive items that are sold at a fraction of what they would cost in nearby Carrion or Lady Lee. The stigma of shopping at a used clothing store has been practically eliminated.
Megapaca is the ultimate recycler. The company not only recycles donated and sometimes discarded clothes from the US, it also repairs, washes, and returns bicycles to their best shape before putting them up on display. “We give value to all our products. Our shoes, our toy all have value,”
said Julio Orozco, El Progreso based Megapaca regional supervisor. “You can find something here that you cannot find anywhere else.”
The employees at Megapaca are instructed to say “Welcome to Megapaca” every time they interact with a customer, and they do so with conviction. The company, a large used clothing and home items chain retailer, trains its employees to provide the best shopping experience possible. “We want to have a
client to have good experience. [to know] they were taken care of well, said hello, took me to the changing rooms,” says Orozco who is
responsible for Megapaca’s two Roatan stores. “We display our clothes as if they were never used.”
Megapaca brings the islanders together. At Roatan stores, you can find the island’s poorest population scanning the store’s 90-percent-off section, and right next to them are the island’s affluent with their Prados and Toyota Tundras parked right outside. Some wealthy island residents still might not like to be noticed there, but by now everyone is used to this and is no longer surprised to see them looking for bargains in nice, designer quality clothes.
Megapaca traces its roots to 2001, when eight friends from Guatemala City decided to create a car import business. One had $8,000 and the other had $10,000. It is a classic rags to riches story, literally. The Megapaca story will make a great script for a movie one day.
They are rubbing shoulders with people who cut their grass.
Over the years, Megapaca became a family business. From the eight original founders, only two remain – brothers Mario and Gustavo Peña. Megapaca’s CEO is Mario Peña. Gustavo Peña, his brother, is the director of production. The brothers trace their roots to service in Guatemalan Military. “We need to deliver what we promise” is their motto.
The company has been different from other used clothing stores since the beginning. They hired a tailor that fixed some tears and reattached buttons of the clothes that were slightly damaged. They began introducing other features that other used clothes importers in Guatemala did not. “No one put used clothes on hangers,” said Orozco. “Until then, everyone placed the used clothes in bins.” These were the first innovations that were setting Megapaca apart from the crowd.
In Honduras, the story was not much different. Catrachos called their used clothing businesses “bulto” and treated it with disdain. Once Megapaca came to Honduras, their presence also changed people’s attitude towards used clothes. In 2015, Megapaca opened a store in El Progreso and Roatan.
Now, after 24 years and not without irony, Megapaca has an online store for Americans in the United States selling them clothes donated by their compatriots.
The company even has plans to open a physical Megapaca store in the USA.
The company operates 145 stores across Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Its expansion further south has been tricky, as Nicaragua has been difficult for the used clothing retailer to enter due to its policies. Megapaca wishes to come to Costa Rica and Panama. In all three countries, used clothes are imported from the USA tax free, obviously a much better deal that new cloth importers have. Nonetheless, Megapaca is proud to say that it is a sizable contributor in sales, municipal, and other taxes in places it operates.
It is a classic rags to riches story, literally.
Megapaca’s economic footprint covers Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, consisting of 33 million people with an annual GDP of $122 billion. That is similar in size to Texas’s population of 31 million people, but is just 8 percent of the Texas’s $1.8 trillion GDP.
In Mexico, Megapaca works a bit differently. It sells unsold clothes from manufacturers in the country. “Mexico is a complicated market, because it protects its manufacturers,” says Orozco.
Megapaca is a large importer, bringing in 2,650 containers a year to ports in Guatamala and Honduras. In all, Megapaca imported 84 million pounds in 2022, which translates to 840,000 pairs of shoes a month. It’s a sizeable portion of the 33 million Central Americans who dress in hand-me-downs imported from the United States.
The store has several innovative practices other than how they sell, There is also a hierarchical structure to Megapaca staff; at each store there are cashiers, second assistants, assistants, and a store manager. There are also supervisors that overlook 7-8 stores, visiting them every three-four weeks. Orozco is one of 13 supervisors in Central America and knows the used clothing business in and out.
Megapaca also has a department for employee well being. The company took on the responsibility of teaching its employees how to conduct themselves and be healthy. “Our culture is based in human values: respect, honesty, discipline, commitment,” said Orozco. “We train our employees from the moment they set foot in our stores.”
The tradition of all the 124 Megapacas stores is that every Saturday of the year, they open their shipped-from distribution center bundles, which in Spanish are called “Pacas”. “We open without exception. This is a law for us,” says Orozco. For example, Roatan’s French Harbour store typically has 60-80 clients waiting at 8am on a Saturday – some of which have been waiting since 4 am. “For us, this Roatan store is one of our best stores,” says Orozco.
You just never know what you will find.
Some people are lining up at Megapaca at 5am on Saturday to take advantage of the opening of the paca. It is a weekly ritual, and it’s not only clothes. Their retailer has books, children’s toys, cookware, and sport items. There are children toys from the 1980s that look like they have never used. In the miscellaneous section, you can find a used badminton racket, an English porcelain figurine, and a 1960s pop-up children’s book about Paddington bear.
Some Megapaca items are in oversupply. Long sleeve shirts and knot shirts that are popular in the US have few aficionados in Honduras. The store has way too many clothes in XXL and XXXL sizes.
Megapaca relies on self promotion. The company does not buy advertising on the radio or TV. It relies on word of mouth and on its high visibility, distinctly colored stores that are always in malls and other premium locations. There are however advertisement announced over the store’s loudspeaker about job vacancies all over the country. Latin dance and romantic music beam across a good sound system, and on occasion alerts interrupt shoppers with announcements about upcoming sales or staff educational programs.
The used items store has provided a badly needed retail service across Central America. “In 21 years we have been a part of millions of people’s lives, providing them an alternative of how to dress well,” says Megapaca’s general manager Mario Peña in an online promotional video.
Megapaca distribution centers amass themed items over the calendar year and then strategically ship them to the stores. That is why at all Megapaca stores you can find bundles of Halloween items in September and Christmas decorations in late November. When Megapaca distribution center ships pillows to a particular store, it doesn’t just ship one or two, it ships all 20 or 30. The strategy works.
Another valuable group to the company and consumers are the resellers. These are entrepreneurial buyers who wake up at 3am on Saturday to be at Megapaca at 4am and have a look at the best selection of clothes available. “There are many clients that buy us to resell, because our prices are low,” says Orozco. There is a name for this type of Megapaca customer -“Mayorista” – someone who buys in bulk.
Many of these Mayoristas supply communities and people that are far way from big towns and retail stores. Some of the mayoristas have clients and know their needs, others travel to villages that are inaccessible by public transport.
You just never know what you will find when you come to a Megapaca store on any given day. “We had a blazer that came into our premium store and we didn’t know what brand it was,” says about a recent item Orozco. The Megapaca employees googled it and found it was sold for $400 in the US. As the “chumpa” was with tags and brand new, it was listed at 10,000 Lps. and sold right away.
Indeed some Megapaca sold items have original store tags and have never been used. But a vast majority of others have signs that the items had a prior owner. Some clothing items have children’s names written on them, books have written-in dedications and puzzles are missing pieces.
The Honduran items arrive from the US in a container to Puerto Cortés, and from there are brought by Megapaca trucks to an evaluation center in El Progreso. The center’s employees sort the clothes by type, size, and damage. Some are repaired, and others, like shoes and stuffed baby toys, are washed. Each item is inspected for issues and damages. In case of bicycles, the mechanics change each bicycle seat, pedals, and tires. The idea is that a client can ride off on the bicycle after purchasing.
We affect their sales, but they don’t see us as competitor.
There are strategies in which clothes are shipped to specific parts of Honduras. “Cold weather clothing is sent to the western part of Honduras,” said Orozco. “The larger shoe sizes we send to La Ceiba and Roatan.” The company uses a system of QR codes to track its shipments, and each individual item is accessible in its database.
Each week an item is discounted more and more. It starts with 15% discount after one week, then 30% off after the second week, and 50% on the third week. It goes like that all the way to 90% discount at week seven. If no one buys an item after eight weeks the Roatan items are returned to El Progreso. “Don’t sell to people something that they did not want to buy,” says Orozco.
Every year on the third week on November, the Megapaca items receive an additional 25% off for the entire week. That is a sure to get an extra bargain. Another way to spot bargains is to perform a quick, on the spot Google search to see what a particular item costs on eBay or Amazon.
You just never know what you will find.
There is also a group of customers who buy some of the unsold clothes in bulk. The clothes that are not bought are processed for mulch at a Megapaca subsidiary company that cuts them and makes them into floor mats and sleeping mattresses. These items are original, they are recycled and sold at Megapaca stores.
The used clothing store has a growing impact on the retail market on the island. There are several national retail stores that are selling new clothes and home items on the island, and both Carrion and Lady Lee have been hit by Megapaca’s presence. “We affect their sales, but they don’t see us as competitor because they bring in new clothes and we don’t,” says Orozco.
In fact, all Honduran cities with a population of 60,000 or more now have Megapacas. There are stores in Catacamas, Olancho, and La Entrada, Copán. La Ceiba has a store nearly as large as the one in Roatán. It is located on the national road that traverses the city, right next to the City Mall of La Ceiba, and it is two stories tall.
San Pedro is dotted with Megapacas – there are six of them. One of them is the Megapaca premium, a store that receives articles with higher quality brands and does not offer discounts.

Megapaca always tries to secure a location that has good visibility and good access. Outside of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, the stores occupy prime locations in malls. In smaller towns, they are in malls and places with good access and good parking.
There are two Megapaca premiums in Honduras – one in San Pedro Sula and the other one in Tegucigalpa. There the items sold without discounts. Fifteen percent of the items coming to Roatan are those that did not sell at one of the two Honduran premium stores.
The company operates 24 stores in Honduras, including the 2,200-square-meter Megapaca in Roatan’s Megaplaza Mall, which is a significant revenue generator for the Guatemalan brand. The store with the highest sales volume is in Zona 17, Guatemala City, followed by the Zona 11 Miraflores location. In 2018 and 2019, Roatan ranked third in sales, but the opening of two Megapaca Premium stores has since moved it down a notch. Nevertheless, the French Harbour store on Roatan remains a key pillar in the Megapaca empire.
Megapaca has 47 employees in its French Harbour store and over 2,000 employees in Honduras. To keep up with the growing market, Megapaca opened a second store on the island in September 2024. The two story building is owned by the company and located in Coxen Hole, right on the main road and right across from Serrano’s Hardware store. Megapaca strives to have good visibility and ample parking for their customers.
The Coxen Hole Megapaca has 3,200 square meters – some of the largest Megapaca stores in Honduras. According to Orozco, 25% of the Megapaca stores in Honduras operate out of facilities owned by the company.

Many islanders were impressed with how quickly Megapaca built their second store on the island. “They did Megapaca in just a couple months, why couldn’t we finish the [Dixon Cove] hospital just as quickly?” said prof. Miguel Angel Mathis, a schoolteacher from Dixon Cove.
High inflation and a sometimes faltering economy has forced an average Honduran family to look for ways to save money. Megapaca has provided a way to do that. With rising food costs, transportation expenses, and increasing rent, the budget for clothing and children’s toys has become much smaller. The purchasing power of the average islander has dwindled, and eaten away at Honduras’ middle class in general. Perhaps not without irony, in the first decade of the XXI century the most popular store on the island of Roatan is the used clothing store.