Good morning. My name is Daniela, and I will be your conference operator. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. This is Liverpool's third quarter 2021 conference call. There will be a question and answer session after the speaker's opening remarks, and instructions will be given at that time. Today we have with us Mr. Enrique Güijosa, CFO of El Puerto de Liverpool. Mr. Antonino Guichard, Chief Digital Officer at El Puerto de Liverpool, Mr. Jose Antonio Diego, Treasury and IR Director, and Mr. Enrique Grinan, Investor Relations Officer. They will be discussing the company's performance as per the earnings release for the third quarter 2021 issued yesterday. If you did not receive the report, please contact Liverpool's IR department and they will email it to you.
Note that this call is for investors and analysts only, and questions from the media will not be taken, nor should the call be reported on. Any forward-looking statements made during this call are based on information that is currently available. They are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations and assumptions discussed today. This may be due to a variety of factors, including the risks outlined in El Puerto de Liverpool's most recent annual report. Please refer to the disclaimer in the earnings release for guidance on this matter. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Enrique Güijosa. Please, go ahead.
Thank you, Daniela. Good morning to everyone. Thanks for joining us, and welcome to Liverpool's Q3 2021 conference call. Once again, I sincerely hope that you and your loved ones are healthy and doing well. Antonino Guichard is joining us for this conference call. As you know, he is our Chief Digital Officer and will share with you the highlights of this business right after I provide some perspective on the overall company results. Afterwards, and as usual, we will open the session for Q&A. Importantly, throughout the third quarter, and similar to what we had observed in the previous one, all our stores and shopping centers were open and operating with few non-material restrictions. We saw a significant increase in our retail revenues compared to 2020 as traffic to our stores continued to normalize.
Liverpool total sales were 21% above the same period a year ago, and our softlines categories in particular increased their top line more than 30%, recovering some of the ground they lost due to the pandemic. Suburbia total sales, on the other hand, were 31% of year ago. If we compare same store sales against the third quarter of 2019, before the negative effects of the pandemic, Liverpool stands out as it posted a 9.2% increase. Our retail gross margin for the quarter was 80.7%, 5.5 percentage points above 2020, and this reflects, number one, a reduced promotional activity, as last year we were still offering significant markdowns to keep our inventory in check. Number two, a more profitable merchandise mix, and number three, lower logistic expenses as home deliveries were down almost 30%.
It is important to highlight that even if we compare our retail gross margin versus 2019, we posted an 80 basis point improvement. Our credit business revenue was 13% below the third quarter of 2020, even though our gross credit portfolio grew 7%. The reduced productivity of our portfolio is explained by a higher share of cardholders that paid their full balance at the end of the credit cycle, lower interest rates applied to customers enrolled in the relief programs that were put in place at the early stages of the pandemic. Finally, credit deepening of riskier programs such as cash advances. Credit card holders, during this quarter, an important milestone was achieved as Suburbia exceeded 1 million cardholders only 3 years after its credit card launch.
The measures that we put in place to control risk continue delivering excellent results as the delinquency rate long time, even in our pre-pandemic history. MXN 253 million, 90% below, likely be the last quarter that we post such a low provision in our P&L. Our bad debt reserve portfolio. Four clients are 90-plus days overdue balance. During the budget provision and depreciation, we're 13.6% above a year ago and basically flat against 2019 lines. Our EBITDA for the quarter was 5 and 23% above 2019. 12 and 36 basis point increase. Profitability is due to the above-mentioned in a strong leverage and a low level of bad debt provision. These were all partially offset by its units lost share. Our operating cash flow during the third quarter was -- inventory is built up for the holiday season, and importantly, balance as of September 30th was MXN 20.4 billion.
A tender offer to purchase part of our Liverpool 60. The offer finalized in early --million dollars or 34% of original outstanding amount. This allow us to flatten our debt maturity curve. Tender offer resulted in a negative effect of MXN 172 million. And we decided to keep in our books the cross-currency. Importantly, we chose not to unwind this one. This cash will be considered as [inaudible] for accounting purposes and as such changes. During September, we have also requested that all construction suppliers was put in place by the Ministry of Labor. No exception. So we expect to catch up in the next several months and start our -- as scheduled. Cumulative CapEx for this period was at 1/3 of our 2022 cumulative CapEx of MXN 3.4 billion -- Guadalajara on September 28th.
It's important to mention that we closed the Liverpool Plaza del Sol store, which was basically across the street of the new one. Since we own this building, we will relocate the Suburbia store that we have inside. In case of Suburbia, we have opened six stores throughout the year. We expect before the end of the year. This is our digital business. Go ahead, Antonino.
Thank you, Enrique. Hello, everyone. Hope you're doing well. In retail, o ur sales grew more than 7% versus last year. We get our operations closed. Comparing to 2019, we grew for more than three times. This important growth is mainly due to market more than seven times, and versus 2019, it's closer to 16 times. Our seller base grew products further. Starting at small e-commerce sites compared to liverpool.com.mx. 10 times versus previous year -- use more than 40% by 2.5 times and also 30% of those deliveries are done by our own staff. Maintaining the quality offered by the Liverpool brand. The next one, please. It's important to mention that we have implemented some important technology advantages to all of our channels. I would like to start by talking about our Google Cloud partnership.
As you mentioned, we're the only Latin American company that has this. This has allowed us finally to export real-time inventory. This allow us to have 122 stores with center fulfillment [inaudible]. We have now implemented also same-day deliveries. Now we're able to cross. You can go to the next one. A very positive strategy about personalization. Based on the information we have right now. [inaudible] Google technology to differentiate each of our wants and needs. Set to offer a really unique omnichannel experience. Even entered our POS digital ticket, allowing our customers to eliminate the printed -- paper, but also in the Liverpool Pocket app. This way they can have the omnichannel order status happening offline and online. You can continue from your orders, despite the channel you bought it. We launched our Monedero Digital.
As a payment method in the e-commerce channel, also giving the rewards through this channel. Also we have the e-wallet Monedero implementation, so our customer can use their own Monedero. Finally, can you go to the next one, please? [inaudible] the Suburbia app, we renew all the technology that supported suburbia.com, the technology that we've been working for this, offering and the same product advantages that Liverpool have within all the technology we've invested. Those are the final numbers for these operations during the last trimester. Back to you, Enrique.
Thank you, Antonino. Finally, I would like to mention that as our board of directors approved the payment of a dividend of approximately MXN 4 billion or MXN 1.50 per share that were pending since our shareholders approved the on March 18th, they will be paid in two installments in equal amounts. The first payment will be on October 29th and the second payment will be on January 28th, 2022. Thank you very much. Let's move now to Q&A, please.
Thank you. We will now conduct a Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press the Raise Your Hand button located at the bottom of the screen. If you are connected via telephone, please dial star nine. We remind you that all lines have been placed on mute. When it is your turn to ask a question, you will be unmuted. If you have placed yourself on mute, you will need to unmute yourself to ask your question. We will now pause for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Vanessa Quiroga from Credit Suisse. Please place your question.
Hi, team. Positive results, especially on the margin improvements. Actually, my question is on that. The reduction in cost of goods sold as a percentage of sales was really impressive. I was wondering if you can provide some details on how much it's explained by mix improvement, other categories, higher margin categories improving, and how much can be explained by the reduction in logistics costs and what's the potential for further reduction in logistics costs? Thanks.
Yes. Thank you, Vanessa. I would say that more or less 1/3 of the improvement came from logistics, reduced logistics expenses. The 2/3 came. Actually it was a combination. I would say that we have a more favorable mix because as we said, softlines in Liverpool were growing at 30% year-over-year and also Suburbia had a significant growth versus previous year, close to 31%. On the other hand, also we have been doing less promotions because our earnings per share are in very good shape and that has also helped us. 1/3 of the improvement will come from logistics and the other 2/3 comes from a combination with lower markdowns and a more profitable mix.
Okay. No, that's great. When thinking about the outlook, what can we expect going forward? There's obviously some room for an improvement in mix. I'm not sure if in lower discounts or less promotions and there's still some room. What about logistics costs?
In terms of logistics costs, we have a number of initiatives that we have. The idea is obviously to make our logistics just more proactive. We will continue to work as we have said, for the last several quarters on increasing the share of the home delivery that we do directly from our stores, that still has a significant potential. The improvements that Antonino mentioned in our technology, both on the app and the web, they allow us basically to show our customers the inventory that's actually in the store where they prefer to shop or they are very close to. That's how we believe that will make our customers choose the merchandise that is closer to their homes.
In that sense, will allow us to deliver that merchandise straight from the store, which, as we pointed out in our press release, the cost of home delivery directly from the store is at 70% less expensive than the ones we do from the distribution centers. That's an important initiative that we have. The other one is to continue increasing our Click & Collect , considering that we are in a normalization hope. Hopefully, we won't see a fourth wave in the pandemic, and the traffic to the store continues to normalize. Click & Collect closed in September around 26%, which is way below the 45% that we had in the pandemic. I don't think we will go back to the 45%, but we expect to be in the low 30s for next year. That also should help us in terms of delivery.
Of course, as we have said, we are working in the mechanical fulfillment centers, which are supposed to open up and running two of them by the middle of next year. They are a startup of one automotive project in the second quarter of 2022. Of course, initiatives, Vanessa, the idea is always to have a more productive, more efficient supply network and lower logistics cost. In terms of the margin, what I can tell you, continuing our EBITDA margin, we think that we will close this year around 15%. That would be still be like 150 basis points below the actual number for 2019. For next year, we think that we will improve to around 5%-7.6%. We will see like 50, 60 basis points for next year EBITDA margin improvement.
That would still be like 100 basis points below the actual 2019. We still have probably another couple of years of working on the efficiencies that you said in order to recover the lost ground in terms of EBITDA margin.
Thank you very much, Enrique .
Thank you, Vanessa.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Luis R. Willard from GBM. Please state your question.
Guys, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I'm watching this one. This is just about the announcement that you made, Antonino, regarding the digital Sorry, that you launched at the end of the quarter. Can you share with us maybe ballpark figures for directionally, first, how large are you planning same day delivery demand to be in the future? Secondly, what changes in terms of processes, logistics, maybe in the store, you put in place to achieve same day delivery, and if we should expect some pressure in margins in the mid-term?
Thank you, Luis. Let me try to answer your question. On the matter of same day delivery, as Antonino mentioned before, our same day delivery with the technology we implemented is putting what's closer to our customers based on their location [inaudible]. That same day delivery is growing exponentially. We started the year with almost, let's say, below 10% of our orders. The last month, we were able to go to almost 20% of our orders. Our same day delivery, we are expecting it to continue in the next couple of months, around 20% of all our orders being done on same day delivery. You mentioned the process. Well, as Antonino mentioned, the last mile delivery cost from the store is around 70% less than Fulfilled by another center. Yes, the process has changed completely to the store level.
What we're doing is the stores were built to receive merchandise, and now the whole process has changed. The stores also become, let's say, a small fulfillment center, they have changed all the processes to also pick up orders from our logistic part within the store. Yes, the whole process of the 122 stores has changed, the whole technology has changed, we're expecting our same day deliveries to be around 20%.
Thank you, Antonio. Would you say that currently the 122 stores, or would you characterize the 122 stores as having many fulfillment centers held within them?
We can say that all the process within the store has changed in order for them to be able to process orders faster and to send out merchandise faster.
That's excellent. Thank you. Take care.
I would just highlight that to your question, Luis, just to clarify that we use our stores as fulfillment centers, but we're using basically the merchandise that is on the sales floor. It's not that we're closing part of the store and making our warehouses in the store bigger. The idea is basically to leverage the inventory that we have already displayed for our customers. If we receive a digital order, it can be fulfilled using that same merchandise. Just to clarify what we mean by using our stores as mini fulfillment centers.
That's helpful to hear, take care. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Antonio Hernández from Barclays. Please state your question.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on your results. My question is regarding logistics, the whole supply chain disruption that is faced globally. You mentioned that you're not facing any particular disruption in your country. Wanted to get more light from you, maybe from a product mix perspective and also considering the inflation phase as it was. Are you expecting maybe a shortage of specific types of products in the coming months, especially considering the sale season ahead?
Yes. Thank you, Antonio. Well, the view that we have on our retail, on ARISE is that we're in a very good shape for the holiday season. We have made what we can in order to advance our purchase orders as much as possible for the categories where we are seeing the shortages that you're mentioning globally because of the issues with the supply chains in the world that are affecting especially the things that have a chip in them, like the computers and laptops, cellular phones and so on and so forth. ARISE have been very active trying to advance as much as possible purchase orders in order to secure the amount of product that we need for the holiday season. And again, we feel that we are in good shape on an overall basis. We are foreseeing some shortages in things like sports apparel.
For example, Nike and Adidas, they produce a lot in countries like Vietnam or China. Due to the factor of the closures in the factories due to the pandemic, they are indeed facing some supply restrictions. In that case, we will probably have 30%-40% less product than we have hoped for. As I agree, based on what we think that on a year-on-year basis is not going to be material for the results we are expecting for the full quarter. That's basically the most we can report in terms of our supply status.
Okay. In terms of overall highlights, top line and electronics maybe. Those are the only highlights, I guess. My follow-up would be regarding interest on credit cards. I know you have different strategies, but are you expecting maybe a gross margin recovery in the next couple of quarters?
For the credit card business, you mean?
Exactly, yeah.
You know, the challenge that we have, obviously, as you have seen in our works before, is that we need to get back to foreseeing positive growth figures in our top line for the credit card. Due to all the measures that we put in place to control this, we assigned a very high priority to control our NPLs. As I explained in the beginning of the call, in the press release, we have reached record low numbers for NPLs below 3%. That's a number that we have not seen for many years, probably more than 10 years. The challenge now is to start growing our portfolio again. We will continue to be prudent as always, to be cautious, but we will start again in order to open some of the product programs that we have. For example, cash advances.
We have been very strict because of the risk profile of the customers that do use those kind of programs. We're already trying to free up some of those strict rules that we put in place because of the pandemic. We are indeed expecting that for next year, our portfolio should grow in the low double-digit number, close to 10%. That our top line for the credit card business will reflect that growth in the portfolio. That's the expectation that we have for basically next year. I don't think that things are going to change substantially in the fourth quarter of this year. For next year, things should start improving on a top-line perspective for our credit card.
Perfect. Thanks a lot, and have a nice day.
Thanks, Antonio.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Álvaro García from BTG Pactual. Please ask your question.
Hey, gentlemen. Can you hear me?
Yes, loud and clear, Álvaro.
Hey, how are you? I have a couple questions, if you promise. First, on Click & Collect , you mentioned, obviously, the great new addition is. I was curious if you saw an acceleration in sales on the back of sort of the better proposition, that the same day and the 2-hour. Are you seeing accelerations tell them about that currently, or is it just expectations? That's my first question.
Hi, Álvaro. How are you? To answer your question, yes, we've seen quite an acceleration. It's a process that is new. What we've seen, it's an important rise in our conversion rates in all of our orders. Yeah, it's going as we expected. We are still doing some fine-tuning with all our systems. Yeah, fortunately, the process has been going well, and yes, our conversion rate has had an important increase.
Great. Thanks, Antonio, for that. I guess my second question, on sort of soft line. You mentioned you're up 30% year-over-year, but it still seems like you're below 2019 levels. I'm curious if you have that data point, and just general comments on clothing generally, if you feel the consumer as they get back to September, maybe see a little bit difference in October. Do you see that category is increasing in dynamism or just still kind of stuck? Thank you very much, guys.
I think in general terms, we're quite happy with the fact that in the fourth quarter we saw we had an acceleration of the dynamics in all our soft line categories. Perhaps the only one that continues to be a little still depressed is the one that has to do with cosmetics. With people wearing, women wearing masks, they're not very keen on wearing any cosmetics. That's the category that is still kind of depressed. Also, formal apparel is still pushing a little bit of recovery, but obviously is still well below the levels that we had in 2019. Just to give you some color on the Liverpool side of the business. Pre-pandemic, around 51% of our sales were for what we call the soft line divisions, men, women, children, cosmetics, and fragrances, and we also include in that category accessories.
That number went all the way down to 43% in 2020, for obvious reasons. This year, we are expecting to get that to around 47%. We'll still be like four percentage points below pre-pandemic for the full year. Our expectation is that for 2022, we will get back, probably not all the way back to the 51%, but close to 50%. That should continue to be more favorable in terms of our retail gross margins and profit mix.
That's great color. Let's hope we hit that 51%. That'd be great next year. Thank you. Thank you very much, guys. Really appreciate it.
Thank you, Álvaro.
Our next question comes from Ulises Argote from JP Morgan. Please ask your question.
Hi, guys. Thanks for the space for questions here. First one follow up there on the financial difference part. Any color you can share here on where you see NPLs trending towards the end of the year? After that, I would have a question for Antonio, but maybe we tackle this one first.
Yes, thanks, Ulises. Yes, we expect, as you know, our NPLs to close the year very in basically the same level that we report in the third quarter. We're expecting a [inaudible ] NPL level by the end of this year. That in turn will result in the coverage ratios of around 11.3% of our portfolio or of that reserve. If you compare against our overdue balance, it's going to be a coverage of close to 4.2 times. We're still expecting to close the year with a kind of a conservative coverage ratios because of the uncertainty surrounding the recovery, and whether there's a fourth wave. We're going to be closely there, again, with a conservative approach. As I stated in my initial remarks, this will probably be the last quarter that we see such a low figure for provisions in our P&L.
We are expecting to close the full year with a provision of around MXN 1.5 billion. That means that in the fourth quarter, we will post a provision of close to MXN 1 billion, which compares to the little bit more than MXN 300 million that we have provisioned for the first nine months of the year. Again, that's our expectation, and that basically reflects the fact that our portfolio grows a lot, as you know, in the fourth quarter. That's more or less the color I can share in how we expect to close this year in terms of our volume deals and provisions in that regard.
That is very helpful. Thank you, Enrique. Thank you for that. The second question I had before for Antonino . I wanted you to get an update, since you are here with us. There, one of the main goals that you described there for your part of the business was to have, know, and identify at least 90% of your omni-channel customers, right? Any color that you can share on how this has evolved, kind of where we stand right now and how relevant these initiatives that you kind of already talked about today, the e-wallet, the Monedero, integrated in that and the rest, how relevant is this for reaching your goal? Thank you.
Thank you, Ulises. Well, on our identified customers, we can see a plan. The first steps where you can see it is on the personalization part that I talked a little bit about. Right now, we are already implementing that. You will see a different offering, product offering, product recommendation based on the knowledge we have from you. That's already been in place, and it's working right now. Monedero is one of the fundamental parts to get to that 90% you mentioned. Now, there's around 11 million Monederos physical cards, and we are trying to put them all into a digitalization strategy so we can get to know our customers better. It's going according to plan. The pandemic, of course, and the store closure did put us in a step back, but we're catching up pretty fast. Yes, we are still on our 90% goal.
We are on track. The first steps are the ones that I mentioned before as personalization and the digital ticket because they're helping us to achieve that goal.
Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for that, guys, and congrats on the results.
Thank you, Ulises.
Our next question comes from the line of Joaquín Ley from Itaú. Please state your question. To unmute yourself, Joaquín, you must press star six.
Yeah. Did you hear that?
Yes, Joaquín.
Hi, Enrique . Good morning, everyone, and congrats on the results and thanks for this call. Most of my questions have been on the loan book. I'm just trying to get a better sense of, for example, a better understanding on how we see your loan book in the last couple of quarters is growing in very high teens and that the credit quality is still dropping 15% in the quarter. I'd like to better understand what's going on there in the sense of how much interest-free promotions are increasing as a proportion of the loan book in terms of dimensions of promotions, [credit] promotions, which are those periods, the proportion of the saldos which increase in those types of structures. Any color that you can share there would be perfect, please.
Yes, Joaquín , thank you. Yes, as you're pointing out, actually, in the past, there's a lack of consistency, let's say, on how the growth that we're seeing or lack of growth, actually, the lack of growth that we're seeing on this top line for the credit card business and the fact that we are finally seeing some growth in the loan book. We have that lack of alignment, let's say, which as you all perfectly know, usually we see a top line of our credit card business growing very much in line with the size of the portfolio. What we have seen is basically a combination of what you already said.
Based on the pandemic and the effect that we had in the riskier customers, we see now a very high portion of our portfolio, which is due to saldos, as you're saying, people that pay basically the full amount, and then they don't generate any interest. The fact that we went through this turmoil because of the pandemic, we had basically lost, I would say, a lot of customers which had a riskier profile, but on the other hand, were very profitable in the sense that we generated interest on them. Also, we were able to charge for late payment fees. That, again, doesn't happen with the saldos. We don't generate any interest, and we don't generate any late payment fees. That's an important factor. Saldos usually were around 15%, 20% maximum of our portfolio, and today they're probably in the 30%, 35% range.
That's an important factor. The only important factor is the fact that we launched the relief programs, especially around 18th of May of last year. We continue to offer them to help grow our earnings and pay on time. We offer them a fixed amount per month, which entails a slightly lower interest rate than the one that we charge for people that are using our revolving line of credit. We also have there a negative impact in the cost because of that portfolio. Finally, as you're saying, also the fact that Liverpool has been selling very well. We are also seeing that's not a major factor, but it's also a negative effect, a slightly higher mix of sales with the non-interest feature promotion. That also is not helping. Those three or four things are basically what is explaining.
Finally, the other thing that I mentioned in my initial remarks, that we closed things like cash advance, which is a very profitable program, but is very risky for obvious reasons. We are now trying by strengthening our lower scores. We have basically new scores in place for board origination and behavior. That we think will help us to see an inflection point. For next year, we are expecting the top line for our financial business will be growing very close to a low double-digit growth rate than we expect for the portfolio.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Andrew Ruben from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Hi. Thanks very much for the question. I'm interested to hear a bit more about this technology hiring and talent. You did mention in the release adding some key functions, but I would be curious how you're seeing the availability of talent overall, maybe how far along you are in building out the tech team, and some color on where you might still have the greatest need for either hiring internal talent or signing up external vendors. Thank you.
You want me to take that, Enrique?
Yes, please. I think that the answer was on the digital and technology front. Yeah.
Hi, Andrew Ruben. Thanks for your question. Well, the availability of talent here in Mexico, yes, that is one of our toughest things to do. Fortunately, we've been able to, one, maintain the talent that we have. Our rotation is pretty low, but also, while there's a lot of dispute in getting the correct talent, we've been able to do so. Fortunately, we still have a lot to go. Also with the change in the law, we basically increased our team tremendously. We grew with more than, I would say, from 60% of our talent has increased. Yeah, we're still struggling to get some of the talents, but we've been able to manage so far. That's why we also teamed up with Google, that we believe is one of the best tech companies. We've done an exclusive partnership with them, and we're leveraging on their latest technology.
What they've been doing is we're working a lot with the U.S. team, the Monterrey-based team, with Google in order to implement all that technology with the tech team that Liverpool has and also with some of our tech team that we have based in India, and that's helping us a lot. What are our greatest needs in technology-wise? Well, just to continue to fortify that team. Also, we need to continue to improve. As you know, the technology moves pretty fast. Now, we feel very comfortable with what we're doing and the tech partners we have to keep up with that pace. Actually, we're very proud to say that right now, I believe we are at the front line on technology advantages and the power. It is not to lose that. We need to continue to experiment with them.
We need to continue to learn with the tech companies, and we need to continue to evolve within Liverpool to keep up with that pace.
Great. That's very helpful color, Antonino. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Andrew.
Our next question comes from Robert Ford from Bank of America. Please state your question. Bob, you are currently on mute.
Hey, thank you. Good morning, everybody, and congratulations on the quarter. Antonino, your marketplace growth is very impressive. How should we think about that going forward, and what can you do to sustain that stronger momentum? As part of that, are there ways that you can take advantage of the USMCA's 100-dollar tax-free limit and leverage that cross-border tax arbitrage opportunity?
Hi, Bob. Thank you for your question. Yeah. How are we going to sustain our marketplace? Well, we've also mentioned on the previous question, our team has grown also tremendously, and that has given us the greatest effect to continue moving forward. We see marketplace as one of the stepping points for Liverpool growth. Our goals are impressive. Our goals are to grow at least three-digit numbers for the next couple of years. How are we going to maintain with the new things that we have in place, with all the technology we also have in place, and also to continue to evolve? We are also looking at the advantages of cross-border. We're taking it carefully. As you know, we are not a fully open marketplace. We take really good care of our customers and of our brand name.
Yes, we are looking, we're reviewing in tweak, and we're taking step-by-step actions in order to take advantages of that cross-border you mentioned before.
Antonino, when you think about the elasticity of speed to sales, do you see opportunities to maybe integrate some of the marketplace with Liverpool logistics and in-store pickup?
Our marketplace is fully integrated with Liverpool. We're launching in the next couple of weeks the Fulfilled by option when it's the seller could be fulfilled by Liverpool. That's going up live in the next couple of weeks. All our stores have the omnichannel experience. They have a tablet. I'm encouraged to say that around 20% of our marketplace orders are sold within the store. We're really taking advantage of that. We're now giving the Fulfilled by option step-by-step and we're starting with you.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Our next question comes from Bruna Werneck from UBS. Please ask your question.
Hello, everyone. Thank you very much. Congratulations on the results. For my part, I would like to know more about the same-day delivery, what regions is it most available and customers having more demand on that. Regarding the CapEx projections as the COVID situation evolves and volatility appears to be fading, just curious if you have any plans to accelerate investments in e-commerce or logistics. If you can give more info on that, please.
Hi, Bruna. Thank you for your question. Regarding the same-day delivery option, it's available in all regions across the country. Because as mentioned before, we're taking advantages of our footprint. now it's based on where the customer is, the real-time technology, taking the stores as mentioned, as small fulfillment centers with the merchandise that they have in place. that's for all regions, for all customers right now. It's going live and as mentioned before, we're expecting to be same-day deliveries nationwide, close to 20% or above.
In terms of CapEx to your question, we had announced several months ago that we were planning to invest between MXN 7 billion-MXN 8 billion this year. With the issues I mentioned due to the new outsourcing reform , which caused us to slow down, particularly for the full month of September and October, we think that we will end this year between MXN 6 billion-MXN 7 billion. That's like MXN 1 billion below the figure that we had shared in our investor day. Of that amount, around 40% is targeted to our logistics and in particular to our [inaudible] project. Around another 15% is earmarked for technology, for IT. All in, basically around 50% of our investment is earmarked to logistics and IT. For next year, our CapEx is flat. We're planning to invest between MXN 9 billion-MXN 10 billion.
Again, 40% is going to be devoted to logistics, and around 15% is going to be earmarked for technology. Close to 55% of our total investment next year will be again focused on these two very important parts of the business in order to stay competitive and implement all the plans that we have announced.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We have time for one more question today from Irma Sgarz from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just going back to the SG&A ratio, I was curious when you think about you sort of compare your SG&A ratio for this quarter compared to 2019, it was obviously down in part because of the lower provision expenses of which you had already commented that it was obviously to some extent artificially low and will normalize going forward. When you look at some of the other lines, there was some help also from the variable lease expenses, which is a smaller line in the P&L. I was curious whether we should also assume that that line is normalizing or if something was at play there. Then, I was just curious, the others line, there's obviously a bunch of different things across [inaudible], traveling, travel expenses, insurance.
That line came up so just for those two lines there, variable leases and expenses, and others within the SG&A, just to think about the different moving parts and any other lines, obviously, that we should think about, whether it's staffing or [electricity], as either a source of efficiency or a source of pressure. A separate question regarding the same-day delivery capabilities that you've offered in [2020], I think make a ton of sense. Am I right to sort of think that it also increases the complexity of inventory allocation into the store because ultimately, obviously, you also want to be careful not to disrupt inventory levels for the customers that are there in the store, not the digital traffic, just sort of the traditional in-store traffic. Obviously, don't want to have to facing stockouts because you're fulfilling online orders.
Where do you think you are on the learning curve and what levers of learnings are you sort of leveraging to ensure that you're not facing disruptions or inefficiencies there?
Yes. Antonino, do you want to take the second question?
Yes, perfect. Hi, Irma. Regarding your question, you mentioned it correctly. Right now, the catch is its replenishment. It's how can we replenish the store fast? there's two things that are going on. Right now, we're putting the offer closer to the demand, and as all our systems are integrated, all the purchase and replenishment systems that we have are now are distributing the merchandise better. Yeah, it is a catch for logistics and a lot of pressure for logistics to replenish the stores faster. That's part of the whole distribution network that we're rebuilding and doing. It's important to mention that we also signed up with a very important replenishment system that is going live in the next couple of months in order to close that gap.
So far, the arrangement is going well, but yes, we see that also as the new goal is to replenish our stores faster, and we're taking all the measures to do that. Fortunately, I believe it's going correctly. The important also thing is, as I mentioned, is to put the offer closer to the demand, and therefore, it will also give you a lot of advantages as less promotion, less markdowns because you have the correct offer in the correct store.
Okay. Thank you.
On your first question, Irma, regarding SG&A, yes, if you see SG&A, and we exclude the help that we have had in the budget provision, of course, which was, of course, very, very important. We also, as you know, saw the depreciation. The SG&A, the expense that we saw in the third quarter of 2021, shows an increase of close to 14% against 2020, which is a little bit below the 15% that we see as increase in the top line. If you compare that to the same quarter of 2019, it's pretty much flat. I mean, the growth is only less than 1% because of all the measures that we have implemented in order to rein them on the pressures that we're seeing on our expense items. I think that that level of original [inaudible] numbers that we're seeing is going to be very hard to maintain.
I think that in the third quarter, in particular, last year we had a one-time effect where because of the very bad results that we have since the pandemic, obviously, we didn't hit any of our goals in terms of profitability for the year. That in turn resulted in no executive bonus. Basically, we didn't pay any executive bonus last year because of the dismal results that we produced. That we reversed the provisions that we had for that item in the Q4. For this year, it's going to be the other way around. We are far away or doing far better than what we expected when we put in place our budget back in April, and it was approved by the board. We're expecting that not as good as numbers that we have seen basically in all our P&L items.
This year, we are very likely, in several of our business units, our executives will receive close to the maximum amount of bonus that they can receive as a variable bonus because of the performance. I'm very happy on the fact that we are seeing our objectives on the bottom line and pressure on the Q4 SG&A. For next year, we are seeing some pressures because of all the inflation dynamics that you are very well aware of. One of them is obviously related to what we spend in terms of packaging materials, for example, or the bags that we use in the stores and that kind of material is increasing a lot. Electricity rates are also going up. There , we are seeing a lot of pressure for that.
In turn, will force us to put in place some efficiency measures in order to make sure that SG&A next year continues to grow below our top line. That helps us to recover the EBITDA margin that I mentioned a few minutes ago.
That's very helpful. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Irma.
Thank you. That concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to hand over to Mr. Enrique Güijosa to call for final comments.
Thank you. Thank you very much for your attendance and for your questions, and we'll see you in February when we report the Q4 figures. Thank you very much. Take care.
That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.