Buen Fin Needs Improvement

Bajadock: El Buen Fin is a discount shopping weekend in Mexico, the third week in November.  Buen Fin signals the beginning of the holiday shopping season and is a preemptive strike against Mexicans crossing the border for USA’s Black Friday shopping the following week.  2017 Buen Fin was Nov 17-20. 

It would be a fun exercise to compare prices for some common holiday shopping items in Baja vs. San Diego.  Hmmm.

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The president of the National Chamber of Commerce (CANACO), Mario Escobedo Carignan, declared this morning that anyone who goes to the United States to buy sends the message that local merchants They must improve merchandise, prices and services.

The previous thing commented with respect to the question on the fact that the mayor of Tijuana Juan Manuel Gastélum Buenrostro, was caught buying in San Diego during the campaign “The Good End”, initiative that seeks to encourage the local economy.

“The campaign of ours does not revolve in that you do not buy in the United States, the campaign is to make aware the quantity of products that we offer in Tijuana at competitive prices, which is a challenge that we have to solve”, he said.

This morning, Escobedo Carignan offered a press conference to announce the results of El Buen Fin de 2017, and pointed out that even though the weekend has already ended, they are looking for the “I buy in Tijuana” campaign to prevail to offer competitive prices during the Christmas season.

They were -as he recalled- 200 companies that registered on the “El Buen Fin” platform. The best-selling items were toys, computers, appliances and electronics in general. Sixty percent of the participating companies had already participated in the project since 2014 uninterruptedly.

Rubén Roa Dueñas, president of the Metropolitan Center of Economic and Business Information (CEMDI), explained that in 2017 the local gross domestic product has increased 4.8 percent, and that since the first quarter of 2016 the employed population has increased 8 percent.

On El Buen Fin, the economist said that sales were 7.6 percent higher than last year – the national average ranges between 7 and 10 percent -; CANACO figures show that the sales of the registered establishments improved between 30 and 50 percent this weekend, due to consumers who took advantage of the discounts.

Before the imminent arrival of Black Friday, Escobedo Carignan also pointed out that Mexican nationalism, policies and the speech of President Donald Trump, as well as the efforts generated by local businesses, could cause the flight of consumers to impact less than the year past.

Mayor in “El Buen Fin” … In Chula Vista / Photos: Roberto Córdova-Leyva