translated from Spanish: Retail sales fell 14% in October

According to the Argentine Confederation of Medium-sized Enterprises (CAME), retail sales fell by 14.9% year-on-year, both online and physical. The report argues that “the fall rate acceleration was decisive for financial uncertainty” and that it “retracted consumption by precautionary effect”. So far this year, the low sum is 26.2% per year.

All items released by the business entity fell, including Pharmacies, with an annual decrease of 3.6% and Food and Beverages, which made it 4.3% for lower sales in food houses, bakeries, kiosks, beverages in general, among others. Sales were better in neighborhood warehouses, but also with a lot of dispersion, CAME reported.
“Beyond the problems of income, employment, and household borrowing levels, the uncertainty generated by the blue dollar rise and expectations of a scenario of devaluation and high inflation influenced the downstory. This encouraged the dollar shelter of many families, reducing the mass dedicated to consumption,” CAME said.

For the entity, “there are no businesses that report positive variations”, although “the reduced circulation of people in quarantine reduced their need, adding that it is one of the last products that tend to recover at critical times for the economy.” For its part, the largest annual drop was carried in October Jewelry, watchmaking and bijouterie with a collapse of 36.1%, above that recorded last month (-25.9%). “It is another bouquet most affected by recession, an effect that deepens with quarantine. In large cities too, the proliferation of informal sellers of these products began to be observed again,” they said from CAME.

Sales in the Apparel category fell 23.8% annually, affected by uncertainty and lack of merchandise. There was a peak of operations on Mother’s Day and then sales were reduced. “Many shops in this area expect an uptick over the end of the year. What came out the most were clothing,” CAME reported.
In Clothing, sporting and recreation items, the decline was 10.7% per year. “In some places there were queues of people to enter and others were empty. There was good bike sales, compared to promotions from some banks to purchase them in 24 installments. Especially in the City of Buenos Aires” analyzed the entity.

Finally, Toys and bookstores was the third sector with the greatest retraction (-24.9% per year). In this regard, the entity concluded that “the reduced circulation of boys on the street reduced passing consumption and non-school attendance prevents the uptick in bookstore and book items. Shops report that even offers do not tempt the public, although toys are expected to pick up with the year-end sale from the end of November.”
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Original source in Spanish