The winter sales began Wednesday morning in an already difficult context for physical stores and undermined again this year by the Covid-19 pandemic, even if the first customers who left to hunt for bargains in stores did not seem put off by the tense health context.
“I work, I go to class, so why not go shopping?” Says Rose, a 19-year-old psychology student who shoppers in the shopping streets of Chatelet in Paris.
Despite the particular period, the sales remain a ritual for Delphine, a 21-year-old stay-at-home mother, who came from Le Mans with her family to the capital: “We took the train at 6 o’clock this morning and we stay one night in Paris for our purchases”.
“We asked ourselves the question of buying online this year, but the stores were closed for a long time, so we wanted to take advantage of it,” adds the young woman.
“It’s a really very soft start,” noted however mid-day Martine Meimoun who has been running a lingerie store rue Montmartre in Paris for 30 years. The crowd was not at the rendezvous in this usually busy shopping district.
If a few dozen people were waiting for the doors of department stores on Boulevard Haussmann in Paris to open, AFP journalists noted, we are far from the impressive crowds of a few years ago, with Printemps not opening any elsewhere now more exceptionally at 8 o’clock, but at 10 o’clock, his usual schedule.
“The concern is strong, we see that the decision to put everyone to telework (to stem the spread of Covid-19) has already had a significant impact on the influx into shops”, alerted Florence Bonnet-Touré on Monday , the secretary general of the National Clothing Federation (FNH), which represents independent businesses in the sector.
In the streets of Rennes, January 22, 2021
© AFP – Damien MEYER
To attract customers in this uncertain environment, traders might be tempted to cut prices significantly.
They “must offer substantial discounts from the first days of sales if they want to interest consumers, because the first days are decisive”, noted Wednesday morning in a press release the Crocis, the observatory of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Ile-de-France. Its investigators “thus observed on this first morning of sales discounts of 40 to 50% on average, and certain brands specializing in low prices (Pimkie, Eram, Tezenis…) were already showing -60% in windows”.
– “It’s never ending” –
Sales have also lost their uniqueness with the emergence of promotions and private sales, not to mention online sales.
Pierre-Yves Busi, 27, salesman in a sportswear store deplores “the dead calm” of this first morning of sales, but for him, “it is not only the Covid” that weighs in the balance. “Even I who work in ready-to-wear, I no longer shop. With the free shipping costs, I tend to buy online, it’s the same price to save considerable time”, he explains.
The context of inflation also risks weighing on sales, with the rise in certain prices (energy, food, etc.) straining the budget allocated to fashion spending. Something to worry traders: 8 independent traders out of 10 say they are worried about the sustainability of their commercial activity in 2022, according to the FNH.
In a shop in Caen, in Calvados, on February 4, 2020
© AFP – Sameer Al-DOUMY
In the streets of the 1st arrondissement of Paris, the situation is mixed. For Laure, 25 years old and employed in marketing, “these sales are shopping therapy”. For the young woman who “has not set foot in a store for a long time”, it is “the opportunity to turn a blind eye to the budget” having “hardly bought anything since March 2020”.
On the other hand, for Rose and other passers-by, “the budget is reduced to what is strictly necessary” after spending the end of the year holidays.
What to push, also, to find other economic models, less dependent on the broken prices: thus in Bordeaux, Maxime Razes, who manages the shop Do you speak French ?, selling articles only Made In France, will not do, him, no sales.
“It is estimated that the price of the product is fair for French producers. There is no reason for the product to be devalued at one time of the year,” he explains.
apz-kal-cda-mgi / mhc / nth
All rights of reproduction and representation reserved. © (2022) Agence France-Presse