Price promotions in Latin American retailing

A survey in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Santiago, and São Paulo indicates that the price promotions Latin American retailers often use have surprisingly little impact on the price perceptions of consumers.
Retailers who offer not only low prices for goods that consumers buy frequently but also a broad range of goods at different price levels in key categories are more effective at convincing customers that prices are actually low.
These patterns mirror trends in North America and Western Europe.

Exhibit 1: Price perception in Latin America is driven mainly by everyday prices and prices on commonly bought items.
Exhibit 2: Pricing on a limited number of items appears to be especially important for building price perceptions.
Exhibit 3: Two markets have dramatically higher levels of promotional activity than the other three.