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On special dates, such as Father’s day, expectations of boosting consumption in stores predominate. The dynamics, on this occasion, showed two dissimilar trends between physical and virtual sales. While the Argentine Confederation of Medium Enterprises (CAME) indicated on this occasion a year-on-year drop in commercial premises, different platforms Web revealed a growth in consumption that, in the case of bank stores, for example, reached a 250% rebound above 2023.
Last week, CAME had announced a 7.3% year-on-year drop in SME consumption in May. Now, given that growth was expected for this event, the result at the venues was discouraging, with a decrease of 10.2% compared to last year. Furthermore, the ticket The average reported by the entity was $31,574, which represented double that of 2023, but below the accumulated end-to-end inflation, which in May reached 276.4%.
The virtual trend was the opposite: many searches, tickets around $66,600 and more sales through these means. For example, according to the records of Tiendanube, the virtual platform for creating stores on-line, the sale was up: in the days leading up to Father’s Day, more than 1,400,200 products were sold, both from SMEs and large companies, which represented a year-on-year increase of 20%“despite the challenging context we are going through,” as Franco Radavero said, manager of the firm in Argentina.
At the same time, he highlighted that electronic commerce continues to make a difference in sales for “special dates like this,” since, he continued, virtual shopping allows access to a wide variety of productsquickly and with various payment methods and financing plans.
However, many physical stores surveyed by CAME also provided benefits: “There were interest-free installments in many businesses and good discounts for cash payments, but the people were still measured. A highlight of the date were collective purchases, among several family members, to save,” the report highlights.
On the other hand, the ranking of the most searched products through Mercado Libre placed perfumes in first place. According to CAME, this was, however, the hardest hit category, with an interannual decrease of 37.4% in Cosmetics and Perfumery. “It was the worst Father’s Day since the pandemic for that sector, where many businesses agreed that it did not seem like this celebration. The stores were managed with stocks limited anticipating that it would be a quiet weekend,” details the document.
Continuing with the products that were most searched for in the sales giant on-lineTechnology was another relevant category, especially cell phones, headphones and notebooks. Also in this area, the difference with physical stores was noted: according to CAME, Equipment, peripherals, accessories and cell phones suffered a sharp contraction in purchases of 29.2%. “There were a lot of sales on-line and through networks, which favored the locals with that modality,” explains the entity.
The trend also supported the search for quotas and discounts. In Mercado Libre, for example, you could find offers of 40% and 12 interest-free installments. CAME maintains on this point: “Most of what came out was with cards and in interest-free installments”.
Part of the difference between one modality and another can be sustained, in turn, in the possibility offered by the virtuality of search and compare prices of various products and on different platforms. For this reason, in Mercado Libre they stated: “Commercial dates such as Father’s Day present an opportunity to grow consumption, driven by available offers and financing opportunities.”
In fact, The growing dynamic was also recorded in virtual banking stores of avenue+, a platform specialized in the creation of marketplacessuch as Tienda BNA, Macro Premia, Tienda Ciudad and Tienda Columbia, among others.
According to the explanation of Eliana Velarde, its commercial leader, during the previous week it was observed a positive balance of consumption, with a 250% growth in sales compared to last year, and the expectation that it would be strengthened even more as the date approached, especially due to the possibility of paying in up to 24 interest-free installments with all payment methods, including virtual wallets.
