Photo: Manuel Ocaño / Impremedia
By: Manuel Ocaño / Special for Real America News Updated 28 Nov 2022, 11: 17 pm EST
Thousands of consumers from the Mexican border crossed into Southern California this Black Friday in search of bargains and, although they thought that the items were actually at regular prices, they ended up returning home with bags with Brand new gifts and clothes.
“It has a trick,” Mrs. Ana Patricia García, who crossed into San Ysidro with her husband, told La Opinión , “We came a week ago to the same store where we just bought and right now they have the same prices as last Friday.”
However the couple had acquired so many items that they had to use a small trolley to carry part of her purchases, and the rest she carried in bulky bags in her hands.
“Look what they do,” said the lady, “what’s new are the signs, so they put a very high price crossed out and they put their regular price As if it were a super offer, they say it’s a discount”.
But the couple had bought a lot anyway, he was told. “It’s just that, anyway, it’s cheaper than in Tijuana; We buy a lot with the idea of reselling for Christmas, “she said.
According to economists, the lady’s assessment is rather accurate. Inflation in Tijuana was the previous fortnight of 9.45 percent, according to the National Institute of Statistical and Geographic Information (Inegi). Inflation in Southern California is 7.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Consumers visiting Southern California they find the items a little cheaper than the Mexican side, but also more variety.
Kevin Mora crossed from Tijuana with a friend to buy clothes and sneakers in a specialty store in the largest shopping center along the US-Mexico border, Puerta de las Américas
Mora agreed that “Today’s prices are not cheaper than usual,” but he bought at the Nike retail store, “because here I get things that they don’t sell in Tijuana, and if they do sell them, they are more expensive in Tijuana.”
Those have been the main reasons many consumers crossed the border to shop on Black Friday after two years of first zero sales, and then restricted in the last two years of Due to the pandemic.
The worst and long periods of high contagion devastated the small businesses in San Ysidro that survive on sales to Mexican consumers.
The executive director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, Jason Wells, reported that some 200 businesses had to close due to the pandemic and have not reopened to the public.
The leader of the merchants estimates that as a result of the pandemic in San Ysidro some 2 were lost,17 jobs that still cannot be recovered.
The season of high sales at the border runs from Black Friday to the day of the Santos Reyes Magos in Mexico, on January 6.
California border merchants compete with their colleagues on the Mexican side who have their pr opiate date similar to Black Friday, the so-called “good end” or good weekend, which are consecutive days with offers.
The good end it kicks off a week before Black Friday but while it achieves sizable sales, it doesn’t stop border residents from crossing into California looking for bargains.
The President of the National Chamber of Commerce (Canaco) in Tijuana, Julian Palombo Saucedo, said that the previous weekend, the good weekend, sales increased in 45 percent.
The manager believed that the boost to sales was perhaps partly due to that in the two previous years people reduced and even canceled their purchases due to the pandemic.
But Mexican consumers reserve resources to make purchases in stores that do not have branches on their side of the border.
It is On Black Friday, for example, a well-known women’s underwear and lingerie store and sportswear and shoe store had the longest lines of consumers waiting to go shopping, with more than 300 people each.
Sergio Pimentel, a young man from Tijuana, He said that “it’s that, look, look. It may be true without prices that are regular here, but if you look, for Black Friday I brought all the new merchandise, because on the day that Christmas sales start, then I find the tennis shoes or a t-shirt that the brand sells for first time this end of the year”, he explained.