Grupo Sanborns, Carlos Slim’s conglomerate of stores, managed to turn around the price hike in the first quarter of 2022 and started the year on the right foot, after battling for almost two years with the consequences that the confinement gender in your finances.
The company, which integrates the Sanborns, Sears, iShop, Mixup, Dax and Saks Fifth Avenue brands, launched in February the Sanborns Restaurant App and the Sears App to boost merchandise sales, including credit card operations, contracting services and the option of picking up in store.
Although the company is the last of the departmental companies to jump on the e-commerce wave –Liverpool did so in 2020–, it has had good results with the omnichannel strategy.
In the first quarter of the year, Grupo Sanborns managed to exceed the sales level of 2019 by 17.6%, reporting revenues of 13,499 million pesos, according to data from the quarterly report sent to the Mexican Stock Exchange.
This level of sales is also 29.5% higher than the amount of sales in the first quarter of last year, when department stores had to close again due to the second wave of COVID-19 infections in the country.
The group also improved its past-due portfolio, whose percentage stood at 2.8% from 5.8% in the first quarter of last year. The company did not detail how much the purchases made through its consumer loans contribute to total sales.
The company directed by Patrick Slim Domit reported an operating flow of 1,086 million pesos, a growth of 228.3% compared to the previous year, with a margin that improved from 3.2% to 8.0%.
Along the same lines, the controlling net profit was 494 million pesos, from the loss of 196 million in the first quarter of last year.
Grupo Sanborns said that the categories that showed the greatest growth are those of durable goods, to which was added the recovery of the fashion and restaurant categories.
Investments in fixed assets as of March 31, 2022 totaled 94.6 million pesos, an amount that was 56.7% higher than the 60.4 million of the previous year, this was mainly due to the acquisition of furniture and equipment, store remodeling and the opening of iShop Tulum, in the state of Quintana Roo, the only store opening during the quarter.
