Suppliers want to receive cash for new deliveries; shopkeepers fear drop in sales

01/17/2023

---

Americanas contacted sellers on Monday to reassure them about possible risks — Foto: Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg

Americanas already faces difficulties negotiating with large suppliers and insurers, sources say. Among small shopkeepers who supply its online marketplace — the company’s largest business — lawyers have guided them to divert sales to other platforms to protect themselves against possible issues in the operation.

Some fear that the company will lose customer traffic online — after the crisis became public — and that this will lead to a cascading effect: fewer people visiting, who buy less, which ends up leading shopkeepers to reduce their actions on the group’s platform.

On Monday, several meetings took place between manufacturers and their legal departments, and also between marketplace vendors and their lawyers. In the last hours of the day, Americanas contacted sellers to reassure them about possible risks.

Among some durable goods industries, it was adopted on Friday, the policy of authorizing the sale through a contract for a cash payment of the purchase — Samsung has already followed this path.

According to three sources, international credit insurers have reduced the limits of the credit line for guarantee operations for industries selling goods to Americanas. The supplier protects itself from payment problems from retailers, so the risk is on the insurer.

Mapfre reduced the company’s line on Friday, which was available for industrial companies to close sales, sources say. Insurers working for LG, Motorola, and Samsung have adopted the same practice. Those limits can be adjusted automatically. Mapfre, Samsung, LG, and Motorola declined to comment.

“They have a very low tolerance for scenarios like this, including because they have already experienced losses at retailers in other emerging markets. Americanas is not a relevant partner [in durable goods], it is not very strategic for those brands, which would even help now to postpone a little bit these revisions in the lines,” says a person familiar with the matter.

Multinational manufacturers do not sell without being insured for close to 100% of the value, which guarantees 100% of the receivables. Some insurance companies accept to open lines with 70% and 80% coverage, but only when the client has very low risk — unlike Americanas today.

In September, Americanas had 107 days of products in inventories, an increase of 11 days compared with the second quarter, but this volume usually falls right after Christmas. In periods of low seasonality, they range from 80 to 90 days. In product lines that retailers call “curve A” — of high turnover –, such as television sets and cheap cell phones, the average stock at retail ranges from 40 to 50 days, sources say.

“There is information that electronics suppliers have frozen new orders until they understand how the payment of the new bills will be,” says a source linked to the industry, who cited the provisional measure that protects Americanas from creditors for 30 days.

After Friday’s provisional measure, the due date for new deliveries is normal. In a sale made before the measure, Americanas may not pay, because the credit is subject to future judicial reorganization, which Americanas may file for after 30 days, said two lawyers who analyzed the measure.

“But the industrial companies can’t bring forward expiration of anything from the past,” says the lawyer of a retailer that once asked protection from creditors. “And in new contracts, suppliers can require to receive cash, and that is likely to be their move,” the lawyer said.

The text of the request states that among the protections for the company is “the preservation of all contracts necessary for the operation of Grupo Americanas, including credit and supply lines.” In other words, industrial companies and sellers could not cancel contracts unilaterally.

Regarding the marketplace, Americanas’s online competitors see, since Sunday, a certain increase in inventory in their systems, and believe that part of it comprises sellers who reduced lots for sale in Americanas’s websites (the group operates businesses such as Shoptime and Submarino as well).

About 65% of Americanas’s sales happen through the online marketplace (third-party products). The remainder refers to products from its own inventories. The company has more than 150,000 merchants registered on the platform. Online marketplaces are maintained by revenue from services sold to merchants – the greater the flow, the greater the revenue.

Valor found out that Americanas teams informed Monday, in calls to shopkeepers, that sales are normalized, in “good pace,” and that the company will not change the conditions of their contracts. The lines of factoring of receivables had no changes until Monday.

In practice, the funds from shopkeepers’ products sold through online marketplaces are “locked” in a closed account, which the platform cannot block, according to a system created a few years ago to protect digital transactions. For the website, only the commission fee is free. But some shopkeepers fear that Americanas will raise commissions or increase deadlines for the release of funds from the sale of their products. Today, the value is released every two weeks.

Americanas said it “maintains the normal flow of transfers in its online marketplace and paid sellers normally on Monday.” In a note, the company said that “the operations continue in the same way, both for small partners and for industrial companies that use the company’s platform.”

Three law firms heard by Valor, which are being consulted or hired by the online marketplace’s shopkeepers, have advised clients to keep their contracts to avoid possible questioning in court, but to also review conditions.

“The agreements will be maintained, but the conditions are of autonomy of the sellers,” says a lawyer consulted today. “That is the guidance we have given to the sellers.” This means that the shopkeeper can change, in his account of products sold on Americanas, the amount they charge for freight, product price, and the number of items for sale on the platform.

*By Adriana Mattos — São Paulo

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/