In the terrible moment that local commerce is going through in Castilla y León – also in Spain – the good news is that the annual sales rate of commerce in Castilla y León in For the first time this year, the Community exceeds the national average, which is one tenth lower, according to data for July, published by the National Institute of Statistics.
After a spring campaign described as “terrible” by companies associated with the Regional Confederation of Commerce (Conferco), it was tourism, as the association itself points out, which helped to activate product acquisitions.
However, this momentary effect resulting from the increase in the number of travelers this summer is not enough because, according to its leader, Adolfo Sainz, “we depend on customers and in a Community with so many demographic problems, small businesses languish”. The man from Soriano points out in fact that “the increase in the number of visitors, and therefore of the population, stimulates consumption”. In this line, it shows that tourism “has a greater weight in sales”, although it is mainly limited to “businesses in urban centres”. Alongside this increase, which is higher than that of the country as a whole, commercial employment in Castile and León is also growing, with a cumulative annual figure of 1.7 percent, in line in this case with the national average.
Conferco recalls that the sector is finishing this weekend a summer sales campaign that has been “very uneven” both by province and by sector. “The establishments have not met expectations”, concludes the president of the employers’ association, who emphasizes that the forecasts were “very good” because they had a lot of stock after a bad spring that meant that companies have a lot of stock. “We have matched last year’s campaign”, acknowledges Sainz, who nevertheless believes that sales are slowing down – or not increasing further – due to “the increase in the basket, mortgages and the cost of living in general, which makes the customer look more and more at prices and exercise restraint when making purchases.
Some small businesses will extend their promotions in the first days of September with the latest offers if the weather permits. The sales give way to the autumn-winter campaign, which the companies associated with Conferco start “with positive expectations” because the return to school “necessarily activates spending in some sectors, even if the recharge card with holiday spending “It could affect consumption”.
