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SUNDAY SHOPPING GAINS SOLID FOOTHOLD IN LATIN AMERICA

By María Bird Picó

Latin America might be a stronghold of Roman Catholicism, but Sundays are becoming increasingly busy at the mall. For many shopping centers it is the second-busiest shopping day of the week.

As more Latin American women enter the work force, shopping is being relegated to weekends. And much to mall owners’ delight, mothers are heading to the mall on Sundays, with the family in tow for a big day out. “Sunday is a family day, and families tend to head to the shopping center to spend long hours,” said Rafael Zavala, executive director, Asociación de Centros Comerciales y de Entretenimiento del Perú, a shopping center trade group.

Labor unions have always made noise about Sunday working hours, to be sure, but landlords here have not encountered any major resistance, perhaps much to the envy of their counterparts in Germany and France, where Sunday shopping is tightly restricted. From the beginning most malls in Latin America have opened on Sundays. In Argentina Sunday has been a regular business day for malls since the first one opened 17 years ago.

“If there were malls that did not open Sundays, it was simply because it was not a productive day, since most opened only until noon or 1 p.m.,” said Luz Estela Ramírez, executive director of the Cali-based Asociación de Centros Comerciales de Colombia. “It was not a family shopping day as it is now. Sunday’s schedule was expanded over the years until becoming the second-biggest selling day.”

The only Sunday hurdles landlords did face came from some of their own retailers, who used to remain shut on that day.

Staying closed was an easy option for mall retailers in the past, when most owned their own retail space. But in newer malls, retailers increasingly lease their space, and the landlords of those centers want them open seven days a week. Even in some newer malls where retailers still own their spaces, contracts with the landlords require them to stay open.

Retailers in older malls are increasingly opening on Sundays to compete with these newer arrivals. In Venezuela the first mall to open on Sundays was Sambil Caracas. That was in 1998, and since then, all the major shopping centers in Venezuela operate seven days a week. “Sunday is our second-best day,” said Alfredo Cohen, vice president of Grupo Sambil, which owns six malls. “Most shoppers come for entertainment or to eat at the food court, but they end up buying merchandise as well.”

Across the region, the day of rest has become a day of shopping. Mexico-based Grupo Acosta Verde reports that Sunday is the busiest day at its 12 shopping centers in northern Mexico. It’s the second-busiest day for Plaza Merliot, in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, where 27,000 people come to shop on Sundays — 1,000 fewer than on Saturdays, but 1,000 more than on any weekday. Sunday is also the second-biggest day for Multiplan Group, Brazil, which owns nine malls and manages five more, and the same is reported by El Salvador-based Grupo Poma, operator of 18 shopping centers in Central America. It’s a day when entertainment tenants are “working at full force,” said Jackeline Lopes, Multiplan’s marketing director. “In Brazil not opening shopping centers on Sundays is not even a consideration,” Lopes said. “Many customers visit the mall only on that day because it is their day off and they have more free time to spend there.”