Consumers spent more than 120 billion pesos (US $6.2 billion) during the Buen Fin shopping event last weekend, a 7% increase compared to 2018.
Announcing the preliminary figures at the president’s news conference on Thursday, the head of the Confederation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco) said the results exceeded expectations.
José Manuel López Campos predicted last Thursday that the four-day shopping event dubbed “the cheapest weekend of the year” would generate sales of 118 billion pesos, 5% more than last year.
The most popular purchases this year were large-screen TVs and household appliances, including white goods. For the first time ever, toys and tools were among the top 15 products sold.
The number of shoppers at commercial centers was 20% higher than last year, López said, and more used credit cards.
He said 36% of purchases were made with debit and credit cards up 25% compared to last year’s Buen Fin.
The Concanaco president said he hoped that shoppers will be able to use the Bank of México’s new digital payment system, called CoDi, at next year’s event.
The strong sales last weekend are good news for the economy, which recorded growth of just 0.1% between July and September after stagnating in the second quarter and contracting in the first.
However, the director of economic and business information at the newspaper El Financiero predicted that the results will be “insufficient to reverse the negative consumption trend.”
Víctor Piz also said that Mexican consumers remain pessimistic about the economy.
While the Buen Fin event was a success overall, not all shoppers were happy with their experience. Consumer protection agency official Surit Romero Domínguez said Profeco received 661 complaints during the four-day event.
For the fifth year in a row, Walmart attracted the highest number of complaints followed by Liverpool, Soriana and Elektra, he said.
Accounting for 38% of the total, the most common complaint was that retailers were not complying with their own offers or promotions.
Source: El Financiero (sp), El Economista (sp)
