See Christmas gifts that escape inflation and are worth a purchase

Inflation, which has accumulated a high of 10.74% between the holidays of last year and November 2021, also represents a more expensive Christmas for Brazilian families, from gifts to supper table.

A leaf selected items from gift lists to indicate which fell, which rose less than inflation and which surpassed the index of the last 12 months, according to data from the IPCA (Extended Consumer Price Index) from IBGE.

The list of those that became cheaper in the period is small and contains perfumes (-6.75%), eyeglasses (-1.56%) and notebooks (-0.7%). The gift of gifts that became more expensive in the period, but had readjustment below inflation is higher and has options such as makeup (4.11%), non-textbooks (4.4%), children’s clothes (6.51%) and female (7.7%) and toys (8.96%).

The notebooks registered increase in demand and a consequent rise in prices in 2020, thanks to teleworking and distance learning during the pandemic. The industry expects demand to remain high, but IPCA data indicate that those who choose to buy personal computers this Christmas should find equipment with a slight drop in prices.

Perfumes also showed a reduction in prices between December 2020 and November 2021. The perfumery and cosmetics sector was impacted by the retraction in demand during the most intense periods of social isolation, but Brazilians returned to consuming fragrances and registered an increase of 22% in purchases of the item in the first four months of the year, compared to 2020, according to Abihpec (Brazilian Association of the Personal Hygiene Industry).

“If it was below inflation, it means that the items did not show a real increase. This is good because, if my salary was adjusted for inflation, it grew faster than these prices”, explains André Braz, from FGV-Ibre (Brazilian Institute of Economy). “On the other hand, items that rose more than inflation will make families adjust demand or renounce them.”

This is the case of gifts such as bicycles (11.55%), jewelry and jewelry (12.26%) and household appliances (12.75%). Among the items that have risen most since last Christmas are video game consoles (18.65%) and televisions, which registered an increase of 22.35%.

Electronics became more expensive in the period thanks to the increase in the prices of raw materials such as copper, aluminum and iron ore, in addition to the devaluation of the real and bottlenecks in the supply of supplies for the industry, says Braz.

The adjustment in the price of jewelry is also explained by the increase in the price of raw materials such as gold in the last year, explains Pedro Kislanov, manager of the IPCA-IBGE. He recalls that increases in gasoline and energy also affected logistics and distribution costs for sundry items during the 12 months considered, such as clothing, which rose 0.95% in November compared to October.

Among clothes, a common present at the end of the year, the increase from last December to November 2021 was 6.51% in children’s pieces, 7.7% in women’s and 10.92% in men’s, the only one among the three categories that registered an increase above inflation.

During the most severe periods of the pandemic, demand for clothing was reduced, says Kislanov. With the reopening, October registered an increase in the flow of people, demand and supply of clothes, made more expensive thanks to the rise of cotton in the market.

High interest makes installments more expensive

Variation in item inflation should be one of the criteria when drawing up the shopping list for Christmas, but not the only one, say experts who recommend caution with installment purchases.

Some items may have registered higher inflation than others, but they are still more affordable for families, says Braz. “It is also necessary to pay attention to the high interest rates built into the installment plan”, he recommends. Attention to interest rates is especially important in the current scenario of rising inflation, in which money loses even more value over the months, he says.

Kislanov recommends that families intensify their price research before Christmas shopping. “In our research to assemble the indexes, we noticed a great variation between the prices of the same item”, he says.