Brazil RETAIL COUNTRY REPORT March 2016
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Brazil RETAIL COUNTRY REPORT March 2016 David Marcotte Senior VP Market Insights Américas WPP – Kantar Retail KantarRetail.com KantarRetailIQ.com Contents Introduction: Brazil Struggles to Get Back to Growth ........................................................................... 3 A Fragmented Country Ranging from Modern to Emerging ............................................................... 3 Shifting Demographics ........................................................................................................................ 4 A Diverse Retail Environment Dominated by Multinationals .............................................................. 5 The Major Brazilian Chains ................................................................................................................. 6 A Range of Channels and Formats ...................................................................................................... 6 Shopping Malls and Specialty Growth ................................................................................................ 7 Private Equity Becomes a Factor ........................................................................................................ 8 Franchising as a Solution ..................................................................................................................... 8 The Activist Government and Distortions ............................................................................................. 9 Petrobras and the Culture of Corruption .......................................................................................... 10 The Success of Cash Transfers .......................................................................................................... 10 Tariffs and Restrictions Continue to Change .................................................................................... 11 Protected and Open Industries ......................................................................................................... 12 Infrastructure Improvements ........................................................................................................... 13 Retail Regulation: Pricing, Employment, and Credit ........................................................................... 14 VAT and Transparency ...................................................................................................................... 15 Pricing Transparency ......................................................................................................................... 16 The Labor Markets: Expensive Employees, Cheap Contractors ....................................................... 16 The Move from Retail to Consumer Credit ....................................................................................... 17 Looking Outward to 2020..................................................................................................................... 18 Population Changes .......................................................................................................................... 18 The Role of Government ................................................................................................................... 19 Channel Development ...................................................................................................................... 19 2020 Themes ..................................................................................................................................... 20 Managing the New Multichannel ..................................................................................................... 20 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 21 2 KantarRetail.com KantarRetailIQ.com Introduction: Brazil Struggles to Get Back to Growth “Brazil is the country of the future ... and always will be,” observed Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s, making light of a perennial frustration with Brazil’s struggles to find steady growth. A country blessed with water, fertile soils, minerals, products of the jungle, and open pastures — not to mention geographic size, location, and population — should have a bright future. However, historically, a number of factors, from governing to global markets, have frustrated Brazil’s development. For Brazil, the future has always proved elusive, at least until the last decade. Starting with the hard fiscal prudence of the Cardoso presidency from 1995–2003 and followed by the gradual expansion of support to the poor along with a more pro-business attitude by the da Silva (“Lulu”) period that ended in 2011, the country seemed to have finally found a foundation for growth. During the 2014 World Cup when Brazil was to show its new progressive self, more than one commentator declared, “The future is now.” But the sudden slowdown in the global commodity markets in 2008 greatly reduced exports and a drought in 2013 and 2014 reduced key hydroelectric production, stalling the overall economy. And a small scandal exploded to epic proportions that struck the government and business community across its leadership. Retailers and shoppers alike felt the effects, with the softening of the currency adding to import costs. The result? Consumer confidence lagged in 2015 and has almost collapsed with respect to that elusive future and faith in the government’s ability to change and move the country forward. Retailing in Brazil has always been a challenge given the country’s wide variety of economic regions, changes in currency and banking, complex credit arrangements, and difficult supply chains. But with the overall improvements within the country, retailing has emerged based on predictable product and services, with shoppers who have the means of buying in a mostly orthodox manner leaning more toward commercial credit. The same improvements have touched the informal retail sector as well. In formal retail, the competition is intense. However, a distinctly Brazilian retail format, the “atacado,” resides in between. A Fragmented Country Ranging from Modern to Emerging Brazil has a long tradition of fragmentation due to geographic barriers along with settlement patterns from Europe, Africa, and Asia in the 17th century through to the present day. The temperate South is generally modern in its approach to shopping and retailing with a range of retailers that would fit into almost any other developed country. Save for some cities, the tropical North is closer to emerging markets in shopper and retailer behaviours. The central coast and inland areas fall in between. The large cities of Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia form an axis of development, with South being more advanced than North of the imaginary line. The interior has advanced rapidly with the expansion of agricultural techniques that have produced larger yields and overall production of grains and animals generally for export to Asia. Accordingly, urban areas there tend to be weighted toward developed market retail models. Brazil and retail will be decidedly different in 2020 as an already-dynamic eCommerce market grows with an online population. Infrastructure that will further enable the shopper and retailer is well along in planning and in many cases has already begun. Shopping centers and malls continue to be 3 KantarRetail.com KantarRetailIQ.com built and opened with international retail chains at every economic level attracted to the country’s 200 million-plus shoppers. The political dynamic at the federal and state levels has already changed more in the last year than in the last decade — promising a change in the control models of public commodities ownership and possibly a reduction in large-scale corruption. The year 2020 promises to be a real focus of current events coming together into a new retail reality. Shifting Demographics Brazil is a large country made up of the former Portuguese colonies in South America with a long history of contradictions. Centralized and bureaucratic control-and-command structures balance against myriad local traditions of self-management and independence. People started arriving from Africa as slaves and then as freeholders. Later immigrants to Brazil came from Europe, the Middle East, then Asia. Now, people are arriving again from Africa, though often as not, people of Portuguese origin. Intermarriage has blurred many of these lines, yet many people still have strong ties to their countries of origin. Estimates of ethnicities in 2010 (note these are self-declared) are: White/European: 47.7% Mulatto (mixed white and black): 43.1% Black: 7.6% Asian: 1.1% Indigenous: 0.4% Catholicism is the dominant religion at 66% with a rapidly growing Evangelical Christian cohort at 23%, alongside a range of other religions including Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. In parallel are a number of religious beliefs in practices from the West of Africa. Geographically, Brazil has a full range of climates, soils, ecosystems, and terrains. And despite the variety of the country, almost the entire population speaks Brazilian Portuguese. The population is predictably urban and suburban at 85% and concentrated on the coastal regions, as shown the figure below. Figure 1. Maps of Brazil’s Major Cities and Population Density Source: CIA World Fact Book, 2014 4 KantarRetail.com KantarRetailIQ.com Population growth has slowed considerably in recent years since emigration is now equal to or (as of