Cold and discounts stimulate sales in Brazil
Valor Econômico
Unlike Paris, the sales in the Brazilian clothing and footwear retail have grown in the two last months. The increase results from the combination of two factors: the cold weather that has strongly arrived this winter and the clearance sales, that started in June, nearly one month before the traditional month, offering discounts of up to 70%. "Many retailers had a bad performance in the first months of the year, even on Mothers' Day, still as a reflex of the crisis. Scared, many store owners entered the month of June with closeouts", said Sylvio Mandel, president of the Brazilian Retail Textile Association (Abeim).
The clothing and shoe stores registered 5.3% growth in the volume in the sales in June compared to the same month of 2008. It is a significant increase taking in account that there was a 3% and 0.4%, decrease in April and May, respectively, according to data of Serasa Experien. The retail as a whole - including supermarkets, cars, furniture and computers - grew 4.9% in the period.
In the half, the clothing retail accumulates a fall of only 0.1%. "Until June, that segment was accumulating losses. With the good performance in June, the result of the half is practically neutral", explained Luiz Rabi, manager of market indicators of Serasa. In the shopping mall stores, the earnings in the first half increased 3.5% compared to the first six months of 2008, according to Alshop, the entity that gathers the shopping malls. As it seems, this month of July should repeat the good performance of last month, mainly, because now it is the official season of the winter sales.