Análisis de los efectos de la pandemia COVID-19 sobre los niveles de ventas en los comerciantes artesanales de Guayaquil

Abstract

The artisan commercial sector is considered a promoter of culture and national identity, which has developed as an unconsolidated economic unit that is vulnerable to external market factors. The objective of this research is to analyze the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sales levels of the artisan trader in Guayaquil city. The applied methodology is mixed, descriptive, and non-experimental, for which it was established to work with a sample of 130 owners of craft shops located in the study area. It was found that the artisan merchant has suffered an important decline on his personal economy because of the pandemic, the restrictive measures of mobilization and agglomerations caused the temporary or permanent close of many businesses. The presence of the pandemic became an intensifier of the health, economic and social crisis on a national scale, whose impact has affected the purchasing capacity and the consumer preferences. Craft markets are business units that work on the same line of products, with the only differentiating factor being the retail price, which in the long term generates conflicts of interest between owners. It is worth noting that the industrialization of handicrafts has been a trigger for the decline of this economic activity, becoming a substitute for national handicraft production due to the low costs it represents.