Christmas sales rise 10%, but mall tenants do not overcome pandemic losses

This year’s Christmas sales in malls had real growth — already discounted the effect of inflation in the period — of 10% compared to last year’s shopping season. The result was released this Monday (27) by Alshop (Brazilian Association of Shopping Mall Store Owners).

The good performance, however, was not enough to bring the retail in this segment to the level of 2019. In the annual balance, the shopping centers project to end 2021 with R$ 204 billion in sales. The figure represents a growth of 58% compared to 2020. In comparison with the result of 2019, however, there was a decrease of 3.5%.

According to the association, the 15 thousand points of sale represented by the entity throughout Brazil received 123.7 million consumers in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The volume of visits is attributed to the advance of vaccination against Covid-19.

In addition to providing more security to customers, the immunization allowed the end of restrictions on store opening hours. In 2020, many states, such as São Paulo, still adopted rules to avoid agglomerations, which reduced the circulation of customers in shopping centers.

Alshop says that the consumer’s return to malls allowed sales to be better, despite the reduction in purchasing power. For the association, rising inflation, high unemployment, lack of consumer confidence in the economy and an unfavorable exchange rate are factors that prevented a better result.

The lack of raw materials and logistical barriers also affected retailers, who were unable to offer the same variety of products as in other years.

A survey by the association shows that 77% of consumers who went to malls bought gifts. Most of them (61%) chose an item of clothing. Also among the most sought after items were toys (37%), perfumes and cosmetics (36%), footwear (36%) and accessories (24%).

“The population is increasingly confident. Still with challenges, this resumption represents an encouragement for shopkeepers who were months without hope of better days, and today, everything results in the growth of in-person sales in stores”, says, in a statement, Nabil Sahyoun, President of Alshop.

Another effect of the pandemic on sales was the adaptation of physical stores to ecommerce. In addition to their own websites, many started to close sales through tools such as WhatsApp. According to Alshop, 45% of sales for Christmas came from ecommerce. On-site purchases in physical stores accounted for 40%.

The most used forms of payment were cash (48%), credit card (39%), debit (38%) and PIX (30%).

According to Alshop, temporary hires made by shopkeepers at the end of the year reached 94,300 workers, with an average salary between R$ 1,600 and R$ 1,900. The average hiring rate of these employees is 14%.

Other retail associations have not yet released their sales balances for this year. Abrasce (Brazilian Association of Shopping Centers) projects that sales between December 19 and 25 will reach R$ 5.6 billion, a nominal increase of 16% over the same period in 2020. The consolidated numbers will be released on Thursday (30 ).

Ablos (Brazilian Association of Satellite Shopkeepers), which represents smaller retailers in shopping malls, hopes to release the result of the shopping season for Christmas this year this Monday.

In addition to the weeks before Christmas, the retail trade also places its bets on the trading season. On Sunday (26), many customers already occupied the malls in an attempt to exchange gifts received at the festivities, for not liking the color, needing another number or preferring a different product.

For high street commerce, exchanges begin on Monday (27) and are seen as a chance for the store owner to attract the consumer into the store, opening the way for new, unscheduled purchases.