Consumption fell by double digits in August and discounts are increasing to sustain sales

Although the Government maintains that it has the inflation around 4%, the consumption continues to decline. According to the consulting firm Focus Market, mass consumption fell by 13.7% in August compared to the same month in 2023, while it had a decrease of 4.6% compared to July. In turn, it points out that the number of tickets fell 3.2% compared to the previous month and 10.3% compared to 2023. Units per ticket fell by 7.3% year-on-year, although they rose slightly in the monthly comparison.

The analysis held that, in In the metropolitan area, the trend showed a decline of 11.5% year-on-year and 4.9% compared to July.. Meanwhile, in the interior of the country, On an interannual basis, mass consumption fell by 14.6% and 4.5% on a monthly basis.

“Average tickets maintain dissimilar behaviors by formats. In the retail channel, they compete for the attraction of the consumer’s pocket with different incentives to attract demand. Offers, promotions and discounts become a basic rule to sustain volumes. Where there is more stock, the promotion is more intense and frequent.. Credit card consumption is increasing year-on-year and is slowly falling in a seasonally adjusted manner,” he said. Damián Di Pace, director of the consulting firm Focus Market.

For Di Pace, “Mass consumption is still suffering. The outlook for the final part of the year is that the interannual sales volumes cannot be exceeded.”

Barbecue, taxis and sweets: the cuts made by Argentines due to the crisis

The difficulty of making ends meet, in a race between prices and wages in which the latter are relegated despite attempts to adjust them in line with the inflation so far in the second half of the year, Argentines had to reduce several of their traditional consumption items and the data reveal that barbecue, sweets and public transport services were some of the items they cut back on the most.

The information comes from a regular survey by Moiguer Consultoraand more precisely its Mood Social report based on a quantitative study of the total Argentine general population aged 16 to 75, on 1,300 monthly cases, and carried out during the months of July and August 2024.

The study found that the decline in purchasing power is setting the agenda for families and, based on this, respondents admitted to having had to make significant changes to their consumption.

The survey concluded that 52% of respondents consider that the capacity Household consumption is worse or much worse than a year ago.

Supermarket Consumption Inflation Meat Prices

Meat prices fell due to the sharp decline in consumption so far this year

Mariano Fuchila

69%, meanwhile, said their household income is moving below the pace of inflation and the 52% said they have debts. Important fact: the proportion of indebted people grew by 10 percentage points compared to a similar survey carried out a year earlier.

According to the work of the consulting firm specialized in marketing, making ends meet is the challenge and, in that line, the 55% of respondents said they had to use savings to pay daily budget expensesMeanwhile, 23% said they started using savings to close their accounts this month, while 28% have been doing so for several months.

Asked why purchases decreased, 76% of the survey participants answered that it was because they could not make ends meet35% because their household income decreased and 29% said they did it to control the budget, among other responses.

From that point on, andThe study aims to focus on what expenses families are relegating when trying to reduce costs. and thus extend the duration of income.

And there, the reduction of the traditional roasts appears as one of the most painful cuts. Of those who decided to cut the barbecue ritual, the 43% reduced the frequency and 37% directly decided not to spend more on these meetings.