Department and self-service stores are not recovering the growth rate after the crisis they faced last year due to the pandemic and which led some chains and specialized stores, such as shoe stores and toy stores, to keep their doors closed, which affected their income and earnings.
Vicente Yáñez, president of the National Association of Self-service and Department Stores (ANTAD), declared that although there was a rebound in sales in April, this is not a sign of an economic recovery. In fact, it estimates that the recovery, to reach the levels of 2019 towards the end of this administration.
Although the recovery is progressing: the accumulated sales until the fourth month of the year of the unionized to ANTAD amounted to 376,200 million pesos, 6.2% below the same period of 2019, the year before the pandemic, when the turnover of the unionized It was 401,200 million pesos. In April of this year, sales in stores that have been in operation for more than a year, or the same stores, managed to grow 46.8%. The growth in sales for all units, that is, considering those that the chains opened during the last year, was 49.5% compared to last year.
During his participation in the forum ‘Companies, a key element for economic reactivation’, Yáñez announced that the association projects that in May they will again have figures that are difficult to compare based on last year, which is why there will be very high sales results for departmental and specialized, which were closed last year, while for self-services the growth will be close to zero.
“We cannot claim victory because there are going to be very high figures, however for us to reach the pre-pandemic levels we would have to do things very, very well to arrive before the end of the six-year term if it can be done. There is always time to correct and amend mistakes ”, he pointed out.
Yáñez explained that some of the stores of the associated companies had to close permanently, although for now the association he represents does not yet have definitive data on the chains that had to lower the curtain due to the contingency.
The representative of chains such as Liverpool, Soriana and La Comer declared that, due to the crisis, companies had to “dip into” their reserves and investments to maintain jobs. “The companies are the key to face the pandemic, they are the ones that are going to carry out the economic reactivation,” he declared.
