The analysis of data and large volumes of images, combined with the implementation of innovative methodologies, allows companies to size up how many of their products could be marketed in outlets classified as informal.
More and more companies need to identify and estimate, with precision, what portion of their market they may not be serving. At the same time, they need to gauge the likelihood that their products are being sold in places that are classified as informal. In many cases, the actual size of the parallel market that these types of establishments make up is not always on the radar of manufacturing and distribution companies.
In the first eight months of the year in Costa Rica, the theft of 107 containers was reported, generating losses of about $5.7 million for the business sector.
Theft of vans and containers in Costa Rica has been increasing in recent years.Between January and September of this year, 16 more thefts were reported than in the same period in 2016.
In addition to the usual problems of crime facing cargo carriers in the Northern Triangle, the union has denounced an increase in robberies on Costa Rican roads.
Inequality and lack of coordination in security measures that are implemented in each of the Central American countries is preventing better results from being achieved in combating robbery of freight trucks.
The aquaculture sector has estimated losses due to theft of the product, which is repackaged in clandestine facilities and then sold in the local market and in El Salvador, at $35 million a year.
Honduran aquaculture companies had hoped that waybills, or shipment details documents, which came into effect with the new 2014 Shrimp Farming Act would help control illegal trade of shrimp, but sofar it has not. The National Aquaculture Association of Honduras (Andah) estimates that every year the industry loses 16 million pounds of shrimp.
Added to the factors already deteriorating competitiveness in the export sector are increased thefts of merchandise on the country's roads and infiltration of drug trafficking in exports.
The National Chamber of Cargo Carriers (Canatrac) reports that attacks on trucks on roads in the country have increased since 2012.They state "... on average 12 assaults used to be committed per year, however the figure has risen to 20 in recent years'."
Alcoholic beverages, technological equipment and chemical products are some of the products most affected by the disappearance of containers which has been denounced by the union of importers in Costa Rica.
The Costa Rican Chamber of Importers has expressed its concern at the "extreme" security measures which have to be taken to ensure that containers with imported goods reach their destination without being stolen in transit.Its director, Katherine Chaves, told Diarioextra.com that in some cases the containers disappear from thestorage zones.
Carriers are warning that an epidemic of theft of containers that primarily affects El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, may be starting to affect Nicaragua.
The president of the Central Transport Federation (Fecatran), Marvin Altamirano, told Elnuevodiario.com.ni that "... at least four cases of container theft have occurred in Nicaragua. "With the authorities we managed to stop about four containers that had been stolen, and which were loaded onto trucks with Guatemalan plates, that showed that the vehicles were already in contact with international criminal gangs.'"