X-ray of consumption in Uruguay

Consumption is a key activity in so-called market economies, like ours. In fact, the market is just that, the consumption space where the various agents transact offering and demanding goods and services. So consumption operates as a catalyst for economic activity, and we even associate it with levels of social welfare. Assuming its relevance, it is pertinent to monitor its behavior.

Among the benefits of the extension of electronic payment and invoicing methods, the generation of a relevant volume of data on socioeconomic behavior stands out, which, processed, generate genuine quality information, monitoring reality. The Scanntech firm issues a monthly report on the behavior of private consumption of a representative sample of the almost 6,000 points of sale that use its system. Basically, food, beverage, personal care and cleaning retail stores, such as self-service stores, independent supermarkets, as well as the information provided by the transactions carried out in two major supermarket chains.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Uruguay

In the first half of the year, there was a 5% decrease in consumption measured in volume (units, kilos and litres), and a 5% increase in billing levels. If only the monthly data are taken into account, the fall in consumption in June is 7% compared to the same month of the previous year.

Consumption behavior is uneven between regions. Let’s see. While in Maldonado consumption falls only 1% and in Montevideo only 3%, in Paysandú and Salto the fall is 11% and in Artigas and Rivera it rises to 10%. Reasons? There may be multiple. However, when it comes to venturing, it is no coincidence that the most pronounced falls occur in departments with strong border influence with Argentina and Brazil. The relative increase in cost of our economy notoriously increases the risk of “consumption flight” with worrying consequences for the levels of local activity.

In the case of Montevideo, the information is broken down by Municipality. There are greater drops, around 6%, in Municipalities A and D, while in Municipalities B and Ch the drop is 1% and 3%, respectively.

The prices of the families of products surveyed have had an average increase of 11.6% in the measurement of June 2022 compared to the same month of the previous year; except for beverages, the rest of the items (cleaning, food, personal care) have had greater adjustments to the CPI.