In Argentina, textile SMEs face an 'indiscriminate' opening of imports, especially from China, and an appreciation of the national currency, which hinders internal competition. Many in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area and the interior (such as Catamarca, La Rioja, Tucumán) are struggling to survive, accumulating stock and reducing shifts. Since the end of 2023, the sector has reported more than 380-500 textile companies closed and around 11,500-18,000 formal jobs lost, according to information accessed by Agencia Noticias Argentinas. The severe crisis that hit hard in 2025-2026 was marked by a historic drop in internal consumption, the opening of imports, and high operational costs that severely affected national production and regional employment. Companies like Hilados SA (Grupo TN & Platex) suspended personnel and faced crisis prevention procedures. Faced with a lack of protection, SMEs are trying to resist by cutting costs and restructuring, in a context where the government prioritizes commercial deregulation. They represent a large part of private industrial employment in some provinces and are prominent in the production of yarns, fabrics, apparel, surgical supplies, and footwear. The specific cases that have become public, especially of companies teetering on the edge, provide material for analysis to frame the statistics in terms of how these crucial moments are experienced from the inside, where a good or bad decision can seal their future. Thus, the extreme situation of a firm producing a recognized apparel brand in the country, with identity and years on the market, was publicized. It has many stores in the nicest areas of Buenos Aires and a large team of people.
"The algorithm needs time, the public needs to see you several times before buying you," the report states. "When the numbers don't add up, you have to act fast. Gradualism with a company that loses money every week is just a slower way to run out of options," he stated.
He emphasized that there are no marketing solutions for structural problems. And second, because advertising doesn't work that way. "If five stores are losing money and you have to go finance them, you start making decisions that often take you further away from the solution," he warned. "But with a strong brand and a structure that doesn't match, the reality of consumption is unviable."
The story reaches its climax when he received a response to his plan that "they have many employees, with more than 10 years of seniority, and they can't fire them overnight." And he shared it, although he also highlighted as a truth that "a brand with these numbers will sooner or later go bankrupt."
This is one of Argentina's great problems, in his opinion. "A lot of imported merchandise came in, which not only lowered their margins, but now they compete against more players (some of them international). And to make matters worse, the consumption pattern of their customers also changed: their public stopped going to the stores to buy," he summarized.
And he described what he defined as a "lethal combo": "They are selling half of what they sold last year with double the fixed costs."
The big problem was not the advertising, which he made clear was working well overall: the store's conversion rate, CPA, creative performance, and advertising costs were in range and relatively correct according to market benchmarks.
Infrastructure, the big problem
He reflected that when you have such high fixed costs, you must be very efficient with each asset. "But now with the prettiest indicators." If the best month of the year isn't enough to break even, it means there is a structural problem, he deduced.
In the case of the company that reached the limit of survival, he admitted they knew they needed to invest much more. But they couldn't. "They never needed to do much advertising to sell. The physical stores and the online store sold without so much effort, but from one year to this part, everything changed," a consultant who has them as a client recounted.
"You need to do a lot of content. It's something progressive. "People today kill themselves to build something that others recognize, something memorable. They have it. It's a process of weeks/months," he maintained.
He contrasted it with the paradox of eCommerce, which is that you need to scale quickly but you can't do it at that speed. And every month you don't scale, fixed costs keep pressing.
He reflected that his client's brand in trouble has the hardest part of all: identity. "Look, even though they lowered their investment from January to March, thinking it might be a good way to get out of the swamp they were in, they lost about the same amount of money," he warned.
He then pointed out that this error is very common: "The numbers scare you, you lower the investment, the marketing metrics 'improve' and the business goes bankrupt anyway. First because they didn't have the cash flow. "You can't triple things overnight."
