The Retail sales in SME stores grew 8.9% year-on-year in November and thus accumulated an improvement of 12.7% in the first 11 months of the current year, according to a report by the Argentine Confederation of Medium Enterprises (CAME).
Compared to last October, sales showed a decrease of 2.9%.
In the year-on-year comparison, six items registered increases and five closed down and the biggest increases were in toy stores and bookstores (+ 91%) and sports and recreation clothing and items (+ 79.4%), while tires and spare parts for cars and motorcycles showed a decrease of 12.4%.
Total sales for November were also 2.8% above the same month in 2019, even above the stage prior to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Of the SME Retail Sales Index prepared monthly by CAME, it appears that last month sales at constant prices fell by 2.9% compared to October, with falls in the 11 items surveyed.
In that sense, “The biggest drops were in clothing and sports and recreation articles (-9.3%), footwear and leather goods (-4.8%) and perfumery and cosmetics (-4.3%), three items that usually have a very good performance in October, for Mother’s Day ”.
In the accumulated of the first 11 months of the year, SME retail sales grew 12.7%, compared to the same period of 2020, although “they remain 8.5% below the same months of 2019”.
Meanwhile, 64.2% of the SMEs surveyed in November affirmed that they believe that their sales will increase in the next 3 months and assured that 9.6% of the entrepreneurs plan to incorporate new personnel.
Likewise, 53.7% of the 725 businesses consulted indicated “having had a good month in November”, while in October that figure reached 57%.
“The categories Clothing and sports and recreation articles and Toy stores and bookstores stood out, which, despite registering monthly drops due to the seasonality of the month, in the annual comparison had significant increases”, highlighted the survey.
In the case of clothing and sports and recreation items, “sales grew 79.4% annually at constant prices, although they fell 9.3% in the monthly comparison, and in the accumulated of the year they are 26.9% above January-November 2020, and 8.9% above that of 2019 ”.
