Consumer Day becomes Black Friday for the 1st semester – 03/15/2023 – Market

From shoes and clothes to smartphones and airline tickets, passing through toys, pet food and even beef. Everything became the target of promotion in the “Consumer Week”, as retailers began to call the period involving the 15th of March.

The date, created in 1985 by the UN (United Nations), in order to raise awareness of consumer rights with society, companies and governments, has been taking on a purely commercial connotation, to the point of being called “Black Friday”. of the 1st semester”.

“In the absence of a date of strong economic appeal between back to school and Mother’s Day, since Easter reduces sales to a few items, retailers decided to boost Consumer Day”, says Edu Neves, president of Reclame Here, one of the main company reputation sites in the country.

According to Neves, Consumer Day 2022 was the third date on which Reclame Aqui recorded the highest volume of complaints in the year, just after Christmas and Black Friday.

According to a survey carried out by fintech cashback and payments Méliuz, among 600 consumers in its base, 90% of them intend to make purchases on this Consumer Day. Of these, 63% must buy on the date for the first time.

“Last year, we managed to attract 97 partner stores in the Consumer Week”, says Méliuz’s marketing director, Gabriel Loures. “This year, there are already more than 130 stores”. According to him, the date became important because it really “covers a hole” in the calendar of retailers.

“But I see conscious consumers,” he says. “Our survey showed, for example, that 40% are looking for the best price for a desire item, which they already planned to buy”. Already 27% seek promotion for items of basic needs. Cashback (the guarantee of a discount on the next purchase) is the most popular advantage, says Loures.

The origin of the date is linked to a speech made in 1962 by then-US President John F. Kennedy. “Consumers, by definition, are all of us”, said Kennedy, who listed four premises of consumer rights: safety (of the quality of products and services), information (against false or misleading advertising and labeling), choice (counting with variety at competitive prices) and manifestation (the consumer must be heard).

“When commerce uses the 15th of March to encourage the sale of products, none of that is being taken into account”, says Carolina Vesentini, a lawyer at Idec (Institute for Consumer Protection). “It’s totally contradictory to say that, in honor of the consumer, we’re going to make him spend,” she says.

According to her, Idec insists on adopting an activist stance so that more and more people understand the impact of consumption on their own lives and on society, in addition to being aware of the rights involved in a purchase.

Legal 3-month warranty in addition to the 12-month manufacturer’s warranty

Among these rights, Carolina points out, is the guarantee. There are three types of warranties offered on products and services in Brazil: legal, contractual and extended.

The law, which appears in the CDC (Consumer Defense Code), says that the consumer has 30 days to complain about problems with non-durable products (food, beverages, cosmetics, etc.) and 90 days to complain about durable goods (electronics and electronics). , household appliances, automobiles, etc.).

In services such as technical assistance, for example, there will always be a 90-day guarantee.

The contract is offered on the free initiative of the manufacturer. In durable ones, it is usually one year. But what few people know is that this guarantee is complementary to the legal one, that is, if the manufacturer offers a one-year warranty, from the issue of the invoice, it must offer another three months of the legal guarantee.

“This is little known, people understand, in general, that the consumer has 90 days or a year”, says Carolina. “But in fact it has both, if the manufacturer, by its own initiative, offered a year of protection”. The legal guarantee can never be excluded, even on the pretext that the supplier offers another type of guarantee, she says.

The third type of warranty is the extended warranty, offered by the supplier (retailer or manufacturer) and contracted directly with the consumer. It is paid and regulated by SUSEP (Superintendence of Private Insurance) and complements the contractual guarantee.