Retail strenghtens orders for Christmas
O Estado de S. Paulo
Retail has strengthened its stocks and is optimistic with the performance of the sales of the first Christmas after the crisis. A research of the Federation of Commerce of the State of São Paulo (Fecomércio-SP), made at the request of the State, reveals that 77% of the store owners have placed equal or bigger orders to the industries than those of the Christmas of 2008. The result takes into account the average of the orders of home appliances, electronic devices, computer items, clothing articles, footwear and foods, closed by 300 companies of the retail of São Paulo.
"The result indicates a favorable Christmas. Our projection points to growth between 4% and 5% in the real sales of the commerce. With that, we will resume the level of 2007, which was a good Christmas", affirms the economist of the entity responsible for the research, Fabio Pina. He emphasizes that on the average of all the groups of products surveyed (durable, semi durable and non-durable goods), 44% of the companies placed orders similar to those made for Christmas in 2008 and 33% of them made orders up to 20% bigger than those.
The greatest optimism was registered among the retailers of foods and beverages (supermarkets), with 54% of the companies placing bigger orders compared to 2008. The sales of this kind of retail depend essentially on the income of the consumer, which has not been so adversely affected by the crisis. Next is the commerce of durable goods, with 35% of the stores increasing the orders in up to 20%. Pina emphasizes that, in this case, the greater offer of credit to the consumer, especially of the public banks, should be the engine that will drive the growth. Such is true that the stores of durable goods are the most optimistic ones: 81% of them bet in orders equal or bigger than those of last Christmas.
Because of the favorable scenario for the domestic consumption and bigger orders, most of the surveyed storeowners (83%) already work with the possibility of having equal or bigger stocks than those of 2008 for this Christmas. Again, it is the C class that will be the apple of their eye. Most businessmen of commerce (67%) intends to aim their sales actions and products for this segment of the population, which suffered less with the crisis.