Mexico, Customer - understand-culture

The Corner Store

In June 2020, during the pandemic, the market research firm Kantar surveyed 8,500 households across Mexico about where they would shop after the lockdown. Kantar reported that la tienda de la esquina, the corner store, was “la opción que da más confianza a los hogares” (the option that gives households the most trust). It was chosen by 56 percent, mainly in the Mexico City metropolitan area.

The magazine Chilango remembered the corner stores of earlier years. “Sabíamos el nombre de los tenderos, y ellos sabían que eras hijo del señor o la señora tal” (We knew the shopkeepers’ names, and they knew that you were the son of Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so).

Direct Selling

According to the Mexican Association of Direct Sales (AMVD), about 3.1 million people in Mexico work in direct selling. The association put the industry’s sales at 88,574 million pesos in 2024.

In an article on catalog sales, Xataka México wrote that “el vendedor es alguien conocido por el comprador” (the seller is someone the buyer knows). The article described sellers knocking on their neighbors’ doors to offer their goods. The same article reported that fewer and fewer people trust sellers of this kind.

Everyone Pays

In Santa Cruz, Etla, in Oaxaca, a group of 20 women asks Compartamos Banco for a single loan of about 400,000 pesos and divides it among its members. The loan is sin garantía, without collateral.

In return, Expansión reported in 2023, the group commits to pay every week, and “si alguien se atrasa: todos pagan esa deuda” (if someone falls behind, everyone pays that debt).

The Bricklayer’s Next Client

In 2024, a study by the Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter in Mexico looked at how Mexican families build their homes. According to El Imparcial, 42.9 percent of those planning to build trust a bricklayer most with the work, or consult one. 38.1 percent prefer an architect or an engineer.

The same study found that “el 78.7% de los albañiles consiguen empleo a través de recomendaciones de personas para quienes han trabajado anteriormente” (78.7 percent of bricklayers find work through recommendations from people they have worked for before).

The Joint Obligor

Mexican credit contracts know the figure of the obligado solidario, the joint obligor. Círculo de Crédito, a Mexican credit bureau, defines this person as someone who “se compromete a cumplir por igual y por la totalidad de las obligaciones del crédito de quien lo solicita” (commits to meet the obligations of the applicant’s loan equally and in full).

Hands in the Fire

Meter las manos al fuego por alguien. “To put one’s hands in the fire for someone.” The phrase means to vouch for a person. A Mexican news site used it in a headline about a politician who would vouch for a colleague.

Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres. “Tell me who you go around with, and I will tell you who you are.” The newspaper El Imparcial explains that the saying suggests that “las personas pueden ser juzgadas por quienes frecuentan” (people can be judged by the company they keep).

Credit in the Shoe Trade

In 1998, the economist Christopher Woodruff published a study of Mexico’s footwear industry in the journal World Development. He studied the trade between shoe manufacturers and retailers. “Informal institutions govern the majority of interfirm transactions,” he found. “Even for new customers, manufacturers did not normally demand any payment at the time the order was placed.” Their order forms were not recognized by the courts as legally enforceable contracts.

Woodruff also found that the opening of trade changed the balance. “By providing an alternative source for procurement, trade liberalization weakened the power of manufacturers.”

Suppliers as Lenders

Every quarter, the Bank of Mexico surveys companies on how they finance themselves. In the fourth quarter of 2014, 79.4 percent of the firms used credit from their suppliers, against 34.4 percent that used commercial banks. In the third quarter of 2021, 67.4 percent of the firms were financed by their suppliers.

The Company Store

On the haciendas before the Revolution, the tienda de raya was the estate store. The historian Jesús Silva Herzog wrote that it kept “cuenta minuciosa de sus deudas, las cuales pasaban de padres a hijos” (a detailed account of their debts, which passed from parents to children). Indebted peons were easier to keep “arraigados a la tierra” (rooted to the land).

Article 123 of the Constitution of 1917 declared void any work clause that created an “obligación directa o indirecta de adquirir los artículos de consumo en tiendas o lugares determinados” (direct or indirect obligation to buy consumer goods in particular stores or places).