Chilean Christmas Consumer Behavior

Christmas is coming. This post takes a look at Chileans’ consumer behaviour during holidays. Writing about what Chileans are buying for presents, Luis Alarcon (ES) describes top-selling present:

El éxito de esta navidad, poleras (polos, tshirt) con las pólemicas imágenes de Allende y el reciente fallecido Pinochet. Los encargados aseguran que su stock esta agotado y que la mayoría son vendidas al extranjero.

The hit of this Christmas are the shirts (polos and tees) with the controversial images of Allende and the recently deceased Pinochet. People who are in charge of them, say that the stock is sold out and that the majority are sold to foreigners.

He also jokes about the controversy of these two politicians and continues “t-shirts and insults are sold separately”.

What do Chileans eat on Christmas? While the British have their pudding, Germans eat their stollen and Italians have pannettone, we have traditional “Pan de Pascua” (ES). It's a traditional cake with nuts and fruits.

Capacitacionencostos (ES), a Bolivian blog, wrote about the expected sales of Pan de Pascua in the two main supermarkets in Chile:

Según Lider, anualmente venden cerca de 2 millones de unidades en los más de 100 supermercados que manejan en Chile, mientras que Alfredo Ruiz, administrador de perecibles de Jumbo La Dehesa, asegura que la cadena de Horst Paulmann espera vender más de 250 toneladas en esta temporada.

According to Lider, they sell around 2 million loafs in more than 100 supermarkets all over Chile; Alfredo Ruiz, administrator of Jumbo La Dehesa, assures that Horst Paulmann enterprises will sell more than 250 tons of Pan de Pascua this season.

Chilean families typically celebrate with the traditional Christmas tree. In popular areas it could be found that the municipality will take care of it, like in Iquique where all of the community of Pozo Almonte was invited to light the tree. As extraiquique (ES) explains:

11 metros de altura, 300 mil luces forman parte del árbol de navidad que desde hace 11 años la Ilustre Municipalidad de Pozo Almonte enciende en Diciembre. El árbol se “ prendió” por primera vez el año 1995 y desde esa fecha Elías Muñoz es quien año a año instala las luces demorándose 30 días en el montaje.

11 meters tall, 300,000 lights are part of the tree that for 11 years has lit the municipality of Pozo Almonte in December. The tree was lit up the first time in 1995 and, since then, Elias Muñoz has – year after year – taken 30 days to set up the lights.

Start the conversation

Authors, please log in »

Guidelines

  • All comments are reviewed by a moderator. Do not submit your comment more than once or it may be identified as spam.
  • Please treat others with respect. Comments containing hate speech, obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.