What will happen to retail during the upcoming national holidays?
The new national holidays will be next Monday the 17th (Passage to the Immortality of Gral. Don Martín Miguel de Güemes), Thursday the 20th (Passage to the Immortality of Gral. Manuel Belgrano) and June 21 (holiday for tourist purposes). Likewise, next Sunday the 16th Father’s Day will be celebrated in Argentina. Given this, the retail trade diagrams the almanac and defines what the attention to the public will be like during those days in the city of Santa Fe.
In this regard, Sol Play maintained a dialogue with Carlos Areseof the Santa Fe Shopping Center, who assured that there are expectations in the sector due to the number of sales expected for Father’s Day. However, he did not rule out that the situation “does not escape” the inflationary context at the national level, which translates into a marked drop in sales.
“These are key dates for retail trade, and we try to take advantage of it in the best possible way, obviously, more so in this time of quite weak numbers in economic entity and in sales.“Arese began. “Thus, commerce is preparing with many expectations, we have seen a lot of offers, a lot of promotions, credit card promotions, the banks are also accompanying us“, he highlighted.
Regarding the week that begins next June 17, Arese noted: “It is a very special issue because we are facing a very atypical week, with only two business days and the business is not in a position not to work for so many days. What we have been able to reveal, through the consultations we made with the merchants, is that On Monday (national holiday), shops will be closed. Tuesday and Wednesday you go to work normallyMeanwhile he Thursday and Friday, which are also national holidays, there will be disparities in criteria and decision making: some will probably open their shops on Thursday; instead, On Friday, there is more consensus that there will be more who will open“, he detailed.
Next, Arese indicated that, when talking about national holidays, “Any business that opens its doors on Thursday or Friday will have to comply with the current regulations that exist for these cases of national holidays regarding the relationship with its employees.“.
Retail trade survey: sales in numbers
On behalf of the Santa Fe Shopping Center, Arese referred to the survey they carry out monthly on retail activity in the provincial capital. He maintained that, probably, by Monday or Tuesday they will have a conclusion on the number of sales for Father’s Day 2024, but warned that they anticipate that the numbers will not escape the economic reality that Argentina is going through.
“We will see the results when we reveal them starting next Monday or Tuesday, but yes, we assume that even though this celebration is traditional, we believe that it will not escape the general context. We have been surveying trade activity month by month, and in its interannual comparisons with respect to the year 2023 it has been declining, some months the drop was double digits; It has been declining since approximately December 2023 or January 2024, until now“, he warned.
