EconomyFinancialJulio Regalado and the summer sales: a boost for...

Julio Regalado and the summer sales: a boost for supermarkets?

Julio Regalado, the Soriana promotional campaign, and the rest of the summer offers reach the stores with the self-services almost recovered from the COVID-19 and with a different panorama than the one they faced last year, when the number of infections in the The country was on the rise and the authorities were betting on tightening mobility restrictions.

The advance in the vaccination of adults in Mexico and the consumer confidence indicator at 42.7 points, the highest figure since February of last year, indicate that there will be a boost to sales, after the first quarter of 2021 Supermarkets saw their revenue decline due to a high comparison base from the momentum of panic buying last year, when consumers filled their carts with toilet paper, water and canned goods.

Although Walmart, Soriana, Chedraui and La Comer, which managed to overcome the crisis and formed one of the most resilient sectors in 2020, have to disperse some ghosts that haunt them to stabilize growth and threaten to put a brake on sales, such as unemployment and a slower pace in the growth of the country’s economy.

Even Vicente Yáñez, president of the National Association of Self-Service and Department Stores (ANTAD), of which all the chains except Walmart are part, estimated at the beginning of June that there will be a slow recovery of some of the retail channels. sales.

“By pure comparable effect, some categories such as clothing or products that are not basic consumption could benefit, because last year sales were quite low. That probably helps a bit, especially when it comes to discretionary consumption. However, the economy has not finished recovering and we are still not going to reach significant growth levels compared to previous years, ”says Verónica Uribe, an independent consumer sector analyst.

From January to March, La Comer was the only chain that achieved double-digit sales growth, maintaining the strength it showed throughout 2020. Walmart and Chedraui remained in negative territory, however, analysts agree that June and July sales will provide a slight boost to sales, which can begin with revenue stabilization toward pre-pandemic levels.

“At least for companies like Soriana it will turn out to be a positive season and, in general terms, surely Walmart and Chedraui will have stability. Soriana, which was the most affected last year, the numbers are going to return positively in the third quarter ”, projects Marisol Huerta, stock market analyst at the financial group Ve por Más.

Between tools and uniforms

Last year, Julio Regalado and the rest of the summer campaigns did not have the expected results. Soriana explained that the campaign is based on the volume of merchandise sales as well as traffic on the sales floor, therefore, affected by sanitary restrictions. La Comer’s Orange Season also had levels below previous years.

These offers rotate the products in promotion and, for analysts, although a recovery driven by back to school is expected, with the purchase of uniforms and school supplies, some categories that during the pandemic had a decrease in sales will return to the positive side , as is the case with clothes and shoes.

This recovery could also infect the acquisition of household appliances or electronic merchandise, as buyers go to stores in search of offers of essential products. In this sense, Huerta declares that the categories that fell the most last year will have better results during the third quarter of this year, when companies report the results of discount campaigns.

Traffic on the sales floor will be the differentiator for discount campaigns, while sales through e-commerce platforms are located as an alternate channel, but which will not have the same prominence as last year.

“The lag in the acquisition of products that occurred last year will lead families to seek to buy them to take advantage of the offers or low prices,” says Julián Fernadez, head of analysis at Bursamétrica.

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