Tiendamia, a crossborder e-commerce , records a 50% increase in the acquisition of these items in Ecuador alone.
Ecuador has been facing an energy crisis for several weeks due to the lack of rain caused by the drought. In light of this, the power cut times have increased and, according to the latest announcement by the Government of Daniel Noboa, they are 14 hours long, between two and three times a day.
The interim Minister of Energy, Inés Manzano, explained the reasons for this decision on Thursday night, October 24, describing it as “painful.”
"We made this difficult decision based on the difficult climate situation. All of South America is facing an unprecedented drought and Ecuador is no exception," he said.
The next day, the authority indicated that he would keep his promise to reduce blackouts to a “minimum” or even “zero” by December. “Yes, I am going to keep the promise that at the beginning of December we will have fewer blackouts or zero blackouts,” he said.
While decisions are being made and announcements are being made, citizens are looking for alternatives to deal with the crisis and have resorted to buying devices that help provide electricity, such as power bands , electric generators, solar panels and rechargeable light bulbs.
Tiendamia, an e-commerce platform with more than a billion products, has seen a 50% increase in sales of devices that generate electricity or light, according to Alexandra Moscoso, head of growth in marketing at Tiendamia.
“We have a fairly large demand for generators and power stations, which are called power bands , which are smaller and can be used to charge computers and cell phones, so more than 50% of our sales today are in that category, but that is very specific and very specific at the moment. We have grown enormously,” explained Moscoso.
PRICES OF SOME PRODUCTS
One of the most popular products from the United States is the 200 W power station at US$ 103.23, which has an output power of 200 W. Smartphones, tablets, laptops can be connected.
The 2,800 W inverter generator at US$667.44, with a power of 2,800 W, also has a shut-off sensor if dangerous levels of carbon monoxide are detected.
“The country with the highest demand is Ecuador for power bands , in second place we have generators, which are more expensive from 2,500 W to 10,000 W, and another thing they are buying are rechargeable bulbs, flashlights, small solar panels, small batteries with panels,” explained Moscoso, who assured that the general normal sales platform registers an increase of 150%.
Since last Friday, for example, local businesses in Ecuador began to run out of power generators. Citizens could no longer find this device, and even UPSs, which are uninterruptible power supplies, were also in short supply.
CHINESE PRODUCTS, HIGHLY DEMANDED
Moscoso is aware that the increase they have registered at Tiendamia is due to the energy crisis; however, that is not the only thing that has grown, as products from China are also in high demand.
“We have hundreds of thousands of units that we import directly from China. We have had a month-over-month growth of between 25% and 30% in the Chinese catalogue, for now the United States is still gaining ground (with approximately 70%), but we have focused on a Chinese catalogue of quality certification,” Moscoso clarified.
What does this mean? Moscoso explained that in the Asian country there are four categories of product quality: A, B, C, D, with the first letter being the best. For this reason, he added, the Tiendamia platform works with sellers (stores) that guarantee that an item is in good condition with category A in brands such as Xiaomi, Lenovo and others.
"So that you obviously don't have any surprises when the product arrives and that you always have the guarantee of delivery, because sometimes it happens, in a logistics process, that you have a product that arrives imperfect and we have returns," he argued and added that this refund is no more than 1% of orders.
Tiendamia, which was founded in Uruguay, is present in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica and Ecuador, and has almost the entire product catalogue of Amazon and eBay. It has certified sellers from the United States and China.
Products delivered in Ecuador are coordinated, for example, with Servientrega and other local companies that serve as suppliers.
They are about to add products such as vacuum cleaners, monitors, and health and beauty products to their catalogue. “Probably a perfume that you can buy here will be much cheaper than buying it on Amazon,” he said.
