“Doing the shopping at home takes us at least twice as long as before, but no room to overspend”, Mark 38-year-old Marina. “I go to the Day for some offers, to the Coto for others, to the greengrocer’s, the butcher’s, the cheese shop and the dietetics. I go to the supermarket the day I have a discount with my bank’s credit card, which is 20%”, adds Agostina, 34 years old.
“I try to buy everything that has a discount, that is, Prices Care, and not tempt me with anything else”, adds Joaquín, 29 years old. Mariana compares the prices of bags of vegetables in the Whastapp group with those of cheap greengrocery that he found in the neighborhood: “I have a really good vibe with the greengrocer so you already know that the day before I come to the supermarket I check his prices. I compare and where it is cheaper I buy, even if I have to stop at both places”, he acknowledges.
In a scenario of rising headline inflation, food prices rose above that curve: the monthly registration of the Indec is 7.5%. And that enhances segmentation at the time of purchases. “We saw an opportunity in the beverage category. It is the fastest growing mass consumption category. And the trend is to buy separately from general supermarket purchases,” explains Diego Arzac, founder of Bonprix, the distributor that leads the North Zone beverage market.
“The idea is to improve the customer shopping experience as much as possible, to that you can buy quicklywithout much waiting, taking into account that today you buy in more than one place, and that the merchandise is loaded in the car,” adds his partner, Agustin Pastorino.
Bonprix is a supermarket of bottles, cans and more, which was born under the premise of being a quick solution to buy drinks, with and without alcohol, close to its customers, with excellent service and unbeatable prices. With an investment of US $100,000, where they poured their savings, they opened their first store four years ago in a small warehouse in Tortuguitas. Today the company is about to open its eighth point of sale in Martínez (in the gastronomic corridor of Avenida Libertador), in addition to those it already has in Tortuguitas, Nordelta, Talar, San Isidro, Pilar, Benavidez and Bella Vista.
“The beverage category grew in pandemic. I think because people were more at home and consumed more. Then in the stage where meetings were allowed, but there were no bars or restaurants, meetings were held at home and that benefited us. When the pandemic arrived we had two stores, but during the pandemic we opened six more,” Pastorino explains.
symptom of a market segmentation which also promoted chains of butcher shops such as RES, Beef and Steak. RES was born from the hand of an accountant and the son of a butcher who understood the need to review the business: today it has 120 stores between the Capital and Greater Buenos Aires and plans to add 50 new ones in 2022.
“Our stores are small in size, we seek that rent does not mean more than 2% of our total sales. And we aim to offer other products, such as pork or chicken which are cheaper options. And to have other alternatives such as sausages or hamburgers from our own production, “explained Omar Onsari, owner of the chain.
reduce the meat consumption or replace it with chicken and pork; incorporate more vegetables and fruit in the diet and favor those that are in season; buy cleaning and non-perishable products from a wholesaler; some of the recipes that are repeated in Argentine homes to face the crisis.
by RN
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