Food and energy prices have pushed inflation in Mexico and the world to levels not seen in more than 20 years, and now the future looks bleak in the face of a slowdown in productive activity and rising credit prices.
What can be done to take care of income and control expenses?
“Faced with these levels of inflation, what households do is regulate their purchases. How do they do that? They look for smaller formats, cheaper options, such as private labels or products without a brand; they try to buy the same in terms of volume, but investing less money”, explained Stephanie del Razo, manager of Special Studies of the Worldpanel Division of Kantar Mexico.
take care of money
Stores and self-service chains have days dedicated to offers and discounts that can serve as a guide to plan your expenses and that have served as support for larger campaigns such as Julio Regalado, commented Marisol Huerta, senior analyst at Grupo Financiero Ve por Más ( BX+).
“Approximately 6% of purchases in the last year have been with some type of promotion. Within these promotions, the discount on the price is what leads this type of promotion”, added Stephanie del Razo.
“A few weeks ago we did a survey on the summer sales. 91% of the participants declared that they were going to take advantage of this type of promotion, mainly for pantry and home care products. We are seeing how these types of products that are more necessary or of first necessity in the homes are the ones that are looking to regulate the expense”, he detailed.
hunt deals
In the year there are different offers and promotions. During the summer there are promotions such as 3×2 in self-service stores, and at the end of the year those before Christmas.
However, the consumer often has trouble spotting real discounts, not discounts on inflated prices days before the sale.
In addition to monitoring and comparing prices, Amazon has an application that allows you to see the behavior of prices during different seasons; “You can see if a few days before they inflated the price to later lower it,” said the manager of Special Studies of the Worldpanel Division of Kantar Mexico.
Thanks to technology, it is now possible to compare various options in minutes. In addition, prior to a sales season , it is advisable to monitor the prices between brands that offer the same product and between different stores.
“One of the ways in which we could detect offers that help us would be to monitor the prices to identify a discount in real price during the promotion”, added Stephanie del Razo.
Another recommendation to buy, prioritizing what you need, is to plan your purchases, particularly of durable goods. This is possible since discounts and offers appear in the same season. In this way, you avoid buying products or services that are not necessary at the moment.
“You can find a cell phone with a 70% discount, but do you really need a cell phone?” Del Razo questioned while insisting on prioritizing the purchase of what is really necessary.
