190 Tango As Economic Enticement?
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 13:03:07 EDT
From: Carole Ekker <HeyCook@AOL.COM>
Subject: Tango As Economic Enticement?
I don't know if anyone saw the following article addressing the struggling
Argentine economy citing Tango as a sales gimmick.
Argentine Retailers Reach for Sales
By DAWN WEINER
.c The Associated Press
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - The tango dancers move in unison to the beat,
but the flash of fishnet stockings and the squeak of leather dance shoes
seems out of place in the food court of a Buenos Aires shopping mall.
It's hardly a smoke-filled tango bar, but the free show staged at the
Galerias Pacifico mall is a sign of the times: A deep economic crisis has any
Argentine retailers stretching their creativity to get customers to pry open
their wallets.
Such promotions are a novelty in Argentina, where the extravagant discount
promotions and slick marketing campaigns of more developed nations are only
recently being embraced by a country that just this past decade adopted a
free market model.
Consumer spending is in the doldrums as Argentine buyers - long some of the
most conspicuous consumers in Latin America thanks to a large middle class -
have gone into hibernation.
The deep economic crisis has translated into sluggish sales and that has many
merchandisers in a funk.
As Argentina endures its third year of recession, the slump is hardly good
for business: Domestic consumption, which accounts for 70 percent of
Argentina's $260 billion economy, has plummeted. Supermarket sales have
fallen since the middle of 1999. Shopping center sales in July, the latest
available, dropped 16 percent compared to a year ago.
That leaves any Argentine businesses hard pressed to make a sale.
``The whole world is doing any type of promotional activity to attract
people,'' said Gustavo Lopetegui, chief executive of discount supermarket
chain Eki. ``The same promotions that worked much better a year or two ago
now do almost nothing.''
The more original the better: Puppet shows for children help lure shopping
parents into one gift store to browse amid wax candles and kitchen wares.
Other merchandisers stage ``live'' commercials in subway trains and public
buses hoping to win over consumers to detergents and other products.
One mall even recreated a medieval fair, replete with trumpeters in purple
and gold lame costumes to herald the arrival of ``Happy Hour.'' As the
trumpeters blasted away, shoppers made a mad dash to an outlet where prices
had just been reduced by as much as 50 percent.
Still, window shopping seems the fashion these days in Argentina.
Gloria Punarre and Jorgelina Corallo visited the Alto Palermo shopping mall
one day to browse and people-watch. ``It's entertainment,'' explained
Punarre, 66, who can while away hours eyeing the display windows.
``Before we would come here to shop, and we bought what we wanted to buy,''
added Corallo. But thanks to ``La Crisis,'' as the recession is called, the
67-year-old secretary isn't buying: she's currently unemployed.
Higher taxes haven eaten into wages. State salary cutbacks have hurt others.
A jobless rate of 16 percent has taken its toll on spending.
Fighting back, some discount supermarkets are stocking up on generic brands.
And ``combo plans'' aren't just for fast food meals nowadays: the strategy
has become popular among retailers, who discount a whole clothing outfit, for
instance, but not the individual pieces.
But even as people have cut back on staples, they have especially shunned big
ticket items like cars and domestic appliances.
``You could fire a cannon in the appliance aisles and not hit anyone,'' said
economic analyst Christopher Ecclesone of Buenos Aires Trust.
July home appliance sales plunged 16 percent compared to a year ago, one
industry group notes. Auto sales fell more than 40 percent in the first six
months of 2001 compared with the same period a year earlier, the automakers
report.
``We are living this every day,'' said Guillermina Garcia, a sales director
at one car dealership, shaking her head. If her dealership moved 50 cars a
month in 1997, the year before the recession, it's lucky to average 20 a
month now.
Dirk Donath, co-founder of the Farmacity pharmacy chain, said there is still
some pampering evident.
AP-NY-09-06-01 0035EDT
