It is a tradition, even an appointment for some, like every year. But will the French only respond present? The summer sales start this Wednesday, June 22, and the discounts will be displayed for four weeks, until July 19. But, between inflation and falling consumption, is this the year or never to take advantage of this period of good business?
“I hope that the merchants will do a little extra gesture and put a good reduction from the start and not that it drags on with a second markdown“, pleads Nathalie, in full scouting in the windows of the new shops of the Montparnasse station in Paris. An idea that Florence also shares: “-20% for me, these are not sales. I like the -40%!“.
Océane, she, decides: the percentage will not change anything. These purchases this year will be targeted. “For children who grow up quickly, and especially shoes that are quite expensive, I expect something. I’m more careful now, and I have a strategy to spend better“, assures the mother of the family. Gilles, he assumes: promotion or not, it will be a year without shopping: “Sales are secondary for now. On a daily basis, we are in the process of managing the most urgent matters: inflation is knowing what will happen in two months. Are we leaving for two weeks or just one this summer? So less shopping and more essentials.“
Faced with these very concrete demands, will traders respond with cut prices? No doubt, but forced and forced, assures Pierre Talamon, new president of the Federation of clothing, which represents some 30,000 shops across France. If they could, the independents wouldn’t go beyond a 20% price cut: “I think a lot of traders will be forced to sell off heavily, but depending on the territory, it’s very uneven. City centers, for example, are in much more complicated situations than the outskirts or certain areas in the provinces. There will perhaps be larger sales in Paris. It has become tailor-made.“
The minimum is to explain a crossed out price or not, according to the expert Rémi Le Druillenec, author of a book entitled Is trade dead? : “This year, perhaps more than the others, we want efficiency on the fact that, from the start of the sales, we will be able to get a good deal, and at the same time, that it remains fair. We have to do understand to customers that there are certain products that are made locally, handmade, in France, on which we have a reduced margin of negotiation… We have to talk to each other. Let this dialogue between merchants and consumers take place!”, he asks. An opinion shared by Yohann Petiot, general manager of the Alliance du commerce, which brings together department stores and fashion brands, on franceinfo: “Traders must try to give a fair price to their customers and on the other hand they must try to preserve their margin, their profitability, at a time when production and transport costs increase and when they have to reimburse their state-guaranteed loan.“
Rest, each year, there is a constant: this year again, a controversy arose on the date of the start of the sales. This June 22 is much too early, according to independent traders, who have just sent a letter to express their anger to the Minister of the Economy.
economy.