After the success of last year’s Buen Fin, President Felipe Calderon announced recently that the weekend of discounts will become a regular feature in Mexico’s calendar.
Mexico’s equivalent to Black Friday, the Buen Fin takes place from Friday, November 16 through Monday, November 19 this year. It will be the “cheapest weekend of the year,” Calderon promised.
Around 1,390 stores in Jalisco took part in last year’s inaugural Buen Fin and this year that figure will rise to 5,000. El Buen Fin is expected to bring a 35-percent increase in sales, equivalent to an additional 560 million pesos, revealed Francisco Beckman Gonzalez, president of the Guadalajara Chamber of Commerce (Canaco). He also suggested that some stores might offer discounts of up to 45 percent.With discounts available for clothing, shoes, electronics and domestic appliances, the Buen Fin is an ideal opportunity to make an early start on the Christmas shopping, its promoters say. Nationwide, some 15,000 businesses will be participating this year, with total weekend sales anticipated to reach 140 billion pesos.
To support the initiative, encourage expenditure and enable civil servants to take advantage of the many discounts on offer, the federal government is offering its employees a 15 percent discount on interest rates for cash loans requested from November 12 to 15, as well as advancing a proportion of their annual Christmas bonuses.
The government is also increasing the discount on interest rates from 10 to 15 percent for payments made on the Fonacot credit cards available to government workers.
For more information on the Buen Fin visit www.elbuenfin.org.