Located in one of the Gothic chapels of the cloister of Barcelona Cathedral and in a mandatory passage for visitors and parishioners leaving the temple, the religious articles shop run by the Fàbregues family, former owners of the La Formiga d'Or bookstore, seemed to have its days numbered due to the economic ravages and the drop in tourism caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
But the growing demand for religious articles, to which they have responded with the start of online sales and their debut on social media, has meant that in just over a year the situation of a business that provides work for four people has been reversed. With more than 1,500 orders during 2021, online sales already account for 15% of all orders. Last year's revenues compared to 2020 have risen by 40% and are at 60% of the figure invoiced in 2019, an amount they hope to match or exceed this year, "provided that health restrictions do not return," warns Bernat Fàbregues, who runs the shop with Íngrid Pi.
For this year, they will continue to bet on digitalization ---so far they have invested about 10,000 euros--- and dissemination on social media, while they trust that the slow recovery of tourism will once again fill the Cathedral with visitors, with or without religious beliefs, and physical sales in the establishment will also grow.
The experience of the Cathedral shop is another example of how the digitalization of commerce is now mandatory: "After a practically blank 2020, we saw clearly that it was the only way out of the situation and that we had to make this commitment and we made an enormous effort to photograph, one by one, nearly 3,000 articles and upload them to our website," emphasizes Fàbregues.
This work has contributed to giving international visibility to the shop which, daily, already receives orders from different parts of the planet, "from Singapore to Ireland, passing through the United States and Latin America." Also from different parts of Spain, one of its main markets, especially Andalusia, Madrid and the communities of northern Spain.
Bernat Fàbregues explains that the uncertainty caused by the pandemic worldwide has awakened and intensified devotions in many people who seek a religious outlet in the face of difficult situations that life presents. Devotional objects, such as prints, saints, and rosaries, "have a special value" for many people anywhere in the world and, for other types of items, "it's hard to locate them or they can't be found anywhere else," they say. In fact, currently, in Barcelona there are very few stores that sell religious articles; perhaps they could be counted on the fingers of one hand.