The Government, through the Secretary of Commerce, concentrates all its attention on negotiating price agreements with supplier companies and supermarkets that manage to contain inflation to a certain extent. It does so through the Fair prices basket, which maintains around 2,000 products with frozen prices for four months and also in the rest of the products sold on the gondolas, to which it has placed a 4% increase ceiling during the same period. period.
However, it comes strategies applied only to department stores, where middle-income and high-income consumers shop and insteadthey do not reach the local shops where consumers of the lowest segments buy, the very ones who need them most benefit from the lowest prices.
Being excluded from the anti-inflation agreements, local businesses such as Chinese shops and supermarkets, which concentrate 60% of consumption, They experience a growing price gap with the “modern” channel, as supermarkets are known. According to data from consulting firm Scentia, “since April 2020, there has been a disruption in the speed of price changes between channels.”
In August last year, the difference price was 25% and the trend has continued to deepen. In part, supermarkets may have better prices for consumers due to the greater bargaining power they have with their suppliers from whom they buy more volume.
But also because the official price containment policies, it has them as historical and exclusive protagonists. The main reason for this reality is the greater power of control that the officers in the gondolas can have.
Something almost impossible to achieve in local businesses characterized by greater polarization. Yolanda Duran, head of the House Grouping of Chinese Self-Services (CEDEAPSA) points out that this sector is not priced fairly”Not because we don’t want to, but because the government hasn’t called us.”Explain.
According to the directive, the resources of the merchants in order not to lose customers, however, pass “Look for the best prices and quality in different places such as wholesalers and distributors. With that, and despite the fact that they deliver between 30% and 40% of the goods we order, we are coping with the situation,” she describes.
According to Durán, several products are missing such as flour, oil, sugar and polenta, among others. “We hope that Tombolini and Massa will take us into consideration to insert Giusti Prices but As always, they negotiate for the big ones and we are the last link”He says.
As a result, sales are very low, according to Durán, except in tourist locations at the moment. In 2022 mass consumption managed to increase (1.9%), for the first time in six years, according to Scentia. But this positive trend was explained by an average increase in sales of 3.2% in large chains against a decline of 4.7% in self-service shops and local businesses.
Source: Clarin
