Linda Kennedy
SAVE THE JANUARY SALES! GOING SOON – UNLESS YOU BUY BUY BUY!!!
I draw your attention to the above, shopper. It’s not a plea to save IN the January sales – but save the actual sales. It’s not bargains that are ‘going soon’. It’s the January sales, as an event, that may vanish.
There’s a war on, you see. It involves a lot of slashing. Which of the perpetrators of deep cuts will be victorious? It matters for our future way of life.
The war is in retail and it’s prices being slashed. There’s east against west: Golden Week v January Sales. And there’s another front, between US and UK: Black Friday versus Boxing Day.
Once upon a time, people in Britain went shopping to acquire gifts for others in the run up to Christmas. They bought. They wrapped. Then they waited to attend a special place, on a much-revered day. Not church on Christmas Day. The sales on Boxing Day. This was shopping – for themselves! Oh God, so much better.
I was at Harrods in London on Boxing Day (for some wine and seafood, sadly exempt from the sales, but then would anyone trust a ‘PROTEIN HALF-PRICE’ sticker?)
There were long queues and I was giddy to see them. These queuers were doffing their woollen hats at the British retail schedule. Hello ‘old skool’ sale shopper, I wanted to say and would have shaken their hands, had they not been full of discounted merchandise. You are saving a British way of life. This is Brexit with a barcode. Sure, most of you are actually foreign but it’s good you are preserving a custom in the British calendar.
But, despite appearances, the truth is overall footfall of shoppers on Boxing Day 2017 was way down in the UK compared to 2016, according to retail experts.
Retail blogs also say January sales are now an optical illusion, with most prices cuts having been made long before.
The reason is a slew of retail rivals getting in earlier and bigger. Golden Week. Black Friday. Singles Day on 11th day of the 11th month. Consequently, Boxing Day and January sales face becoming relics from the retail past. Meantime, it’s all leading to sale inflation. How many desperate adjectives have you seen? Hyper-sale. Flash sale. No mark up sale. It’s a sale free-for-all (and that’s a really good sale).
Me, I think it’s time for Britain to fight back against the Americanisation and Sinofication of the retail calendar. Coincidentally, this week saw London hoisting signs which sought to rebrand parts of the city like Holborn and Bloomsbury as Midtown, copying New York. There is no Midtown in London. There should be no Black Friday in its shops. Bloody hell. Brits go bargain hunting from Boxing Day onwards and to do so any earlier is treason with a receipt.
How to promote Boxing Day? The Queen could drive from Sandringham and open a Boxing Day sale. How to kill Black Friday? Meghan must be photographed doing anything but shopping.
Although, one thing. I wonder if British retailers realise the Chinese could, conversely, rescue the January Sales, even though China’s Golden Week is one of the major threats.
British heritage brands are hugely attractive to Chinese consumers, so what about heritage events? Ye Olde British January Sales? It’s where Shakespeare bought his ruffs, 50% off. Honest.
As soon as the Christmas decorations are down, London’s shopping streets could string up up lovely decorations-cum-sale stickers. In bright red. Perfect. Call it ‘January in London – A Great British Bargain Break.’ Buy your Chinese New Year gifts to yourself here.
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