This situation occurs despite the fact that, according to the chamber, domestic toys up “60% year-on-year” -less than the inflation accumulated in the last twelve months- in contrast to those coming from abroad that “had an increase of more than 130%, because their prices are set at “a future exchange rate, different from the official one”.
The local chamber warned that imports between January and November of this year “increased 38% in values compared to the same period in 2021” and that foreign products, in certain shops, come to comprise 95% of the offer.
They also indicated that the use of precautionary measures “in addition to restricting the availability of foreign currency for inputs and raw materials for production” by using the official exchange rate, harmed the local toy industry and “traditional importers and distributors who complied with with the procedures established by the Secretary of Commerce”.
There are also other factors that caused the drop in sales, according to the business chamber.
On the one hand, there is the “loss of purchasing power” that prompted the sale on public roads and in electronic commerce platforms for “smuggled apocryphal products” of lower value, which -the CAIJ warned- “do not have the corresponding security certificates.”
The chamber calculated that the participation of these illegal products in the Argentine toy market is 25%.
On the other hand, The CAIJ also pointed out that this year, due to the development of the World Cup in Qatar, Christmas sales moved towards the last days before the holiday. In this sense, just as of last Wednesday, once the celebrations for the victory of the championship by the national team ended, “more movement began to be noticed.”
This reduced time frame, according to the CAIJ, was not “sufficient to reach the level of sales of last season.”
On average, the ticket was of the order of $2,300 per person with cash and $5,500 in credit card transactionsthe latter focused on businesses with the largest number of imported products.
The categories that grew the most, the camera said, are those that “traditionally have a better performance at this stage of the year,” including inexpensive outdoor products such as balls, water cannons, dump trucks and plastic cars, pool floats, items for the arena, board games and molding masses.
Beyond the lower sales of national toys, the CAIJ was expectant for the results of the new Import System of the Argentine Republic (SIRA) that replaced the Integral Import Monitoring System (SIMI) last October, and for the sales to join in the season of Three Kings.
“The Argentine industry finds itself with a lower level of production and today it barely occupies 60% of the installed capacity in the factories, and it has a low participation of 30% of the Argentine toy market when in 2015 it was able to reach 50%” , concluded from the CAIJ.
Source: Ambito
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