So How Was It For You?: The January Sales

The Jan Sale I mean!

The long held tradition of the 'January Sales', where we would all faithfully drag ourselves around the shops during the long weeks of January- to cheer ourselves up and get the bargains on the products we had been eyeing up before Christmas seems to officially be over....
I certainly remember the days, not so long ago, where the more committed amongst us would be there on the first day, picking up the early unmissable deals, whilst others of us would browse, and ride out the rest of the sale period until the dying days when the final clearance of goods would throw up some more cheap gems...

But there's no time for that now! With alot of the bargains available pre-Xmas as the high street start their sales ever earlier, Retail Week reports one 'fashion-led retailer' as stating that his business would be out of clearance and trading full price again by Thursday!!! And I think this phenomenon is evidenced to a degree on the high street and online. Sure there are still plenty of goods available at reduced prices, but it's only the 6th of January and those goods are moving quickly indeed with the best choices already gone- I tried to order a coat online late last night that was already out of stock by the time I got to payment!

And why? A key reason is that a lot of retailers have been caught out in the past, particularly last year when winter stock had been ordered many months before the full impact of the recession on consumer spending had been known or felt. This left them with a high stock holding of old/discontinued lines- the proverbial albatross around the retailer's neck, tying up cash that should be spent on new stock, and eroding margins as the stock needs to be ever deeply slashed in price to be cleared.
Nobody wants to make that mistake again, so tighter stock management has been required, with stock holding reduced, and stock turn increased, (smarter sourcing helps- reducing lead-times means stock can be bought in smaller, more regular quantities, reducing risk), with early sales and initial competitive price cuts to clear out that residual winter stock quickly and move on....

Finally and most importantly- Is this a good thing for consumers? Well, if you have been savvy and fairly aggressive about your sale shopping then perhaps you have still done well out of this years' sales; but the more laid-back shopper has probably missed out- as they say, You Snooze, You Lose!
It also presents more challenges for retailers as they now have to present us with a new reason to brave the shops at this somewhat grim time of year, and a reason to part with our cash at a time of the year when we were still expecting post-Christmas bargains...  So the new season of products will need to be in stores much earlier, and will need to include real 'Must-Haves' to acheive those objectives.

Lets see how that pans out....