Mexico families turning to yard sales for income, cheap goods

  SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. – The recent appearance of improvised patio sales set up by families to improve their financial situation has not turned out to be much help in this time of crisis.

  Because the number of used clothing, electrical household items and bric-a-brac stands is so large, the competition between them does not leave good profits to the people who start such a business.

 Juana Cano de Valencia is one of the family entrepreneurs who opened a stand in her home’s front yard on Calle Sexta. She offers clothing and used shoes to her clients, the majority of whom come from her own neighborhood.

  In the past few weeks, her customers have started to compete against her.  

 “The crisis has created a situation that you can see patio sales on practically every corner. We only make enough to get tortillas and a soda,” said the housewife, who is flanked by two enormous dogs tied near her as crime prevention. 

 She commented that it had been only three days since she reopened her used clothing stand and has not sold more than 75 pesos (about $5.42). People were buying more at the beginning of the year, but now, they only look and sift through the clothing even though each piece only costs between 5 and 25 pesos (about 36 cents to $1.80).

 “There is a lot of competition. There are stands in front of the houses on every corner. Just in this three-block area, there are seven secondhand stands and people only come, look, sift through the clothes and leave,” said Cano while knitting a sweater.

 When asked if people are more readily buying secondhand articles now because there is a crisis, she said no, because the crisis also prevents people from spending money on secondhand items and those people who continue to have buying power prefer to buy brand-new articles.  

 In other secondhand stands/patio sales, the owners chose not to take part in this interview for fear of the Mexican revenue authorities. Those officials are now auditing the improvised stands setup by the San Luis residents to stretch their low wages and compensate the nearly 30 percent price increase basic food needs.