Unlike hypermarkets and supermarkets, where sales continue to have a good pulse, activity in
self-service stores and regional chains plummeted again in March
, according to monitoring by specialist consultancies in mass consumption.
In local businesses,
the fall averaged 7.6%
and accelerated in the first week of April.
This sector includes Chinese supermarkets, many of which are lowering their curtains.
Meanwhile, regional chains, located in the interior of the country, fell
11.2%
in the same period, as measured by the Scanntech firm.
According to this survey, "all product families lose in consumption in the first quarter of the year: Food (-15.7%), as well as Personal Care (-12.2%), are the ones with the greatest drop while Cleaning (-7.4) and Beverages (-2.1) present negative variations of lesser magnitude”, explained the latest report.
After processing 9.5 million tickets in the month, the consultancy found that the average purchase in self-service stores was $1,337, including 4.4 units.
"The frequency of visits to the channel grew by around 5.1% during the accumulated of 2023, but with
a lower average transaction in number of units,"
explains Gustavo Mallo, Scanntech analyst.
Also in regional chains, where the average purchase ticket was $2,395 including 8.2 units, sales fell to the beat of
annual inflation of 122.8% in these areas.
The fundamental reason for the decline in sales of these businesses is the impact of prices.
In the case of self-services,
they rose
6.4% in March and have accumulated a year-on-year rise of 128%.
The
price gap
between these points of sale and the large chains
reaches 22%
this year, compared to 28% last year, when historically it was 10 percent.
Local businesses such as self-service stores have been in the eye of the storm in recent days because, when the inflation data for March was released, the Secretary of Commerce Matias Tombolini
blamed them for the increases by pointing out that they are "price makers". .
Evolution of consumption in supermarkets, according to Scanntech.
When analyzing these same data, Damián Di Pace, director of the Focus Market consultancy, explained that "in self-service stores of up to 500 square meters, the first week of April began with a drop of 13.7%. However, the situation of chains of regional supermarkets is even worse, with a fall of 23.1%”, he specified.
In March, Scentia detected
an average increase in sales of 1.6%
compared to the same month in 2022 in all marketing channels.
However, this increase was explained exclusively by the performance of the chains, which registered
a rise of 10.4%
last month.
On the other hand, in the traditional channel, such as supermarkets, demand
fell 6.1%
, according to these same records.
According to the specialist,
"the acceleration of inflation plus the displacement of consumers towards large commercial areas in the attempt to find Fair Prices
is generating a dual behavior of consumption," he says.
It happens that, since November of last year, consumers have been able to buy a basket of around 2,000 products in the gondolas that keep their price frozen, while the rest of the items that are sold in that channel have a ceiling of rises of 3.2% monthly until June.
Precisely, the measurements of the Scentia consultancy that relieves the volumes sold of food, beverages and hygiene, cleaning and toilet products,
including the large supermarket chains, has been reporting the gap between the channels due to the different escalation of prices.
According to Di Pace, the situation of local commerce, where lower-income consumers buy, "along with the official data of an increase in the basic food basket of 9% per month and 120% year-on-year in March shows the deterioration of the purchasing power of argentines".
NE
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