A mixed feeling for the summer sales
Three out of four French shoppers took advantage of the sales period, which ended on August 7. However, with declining footfall and competition from e-commerce platforms, this year's results are rather mixed for retailers. The figures show a performance close to that of summer 2017, but half the retailers surveyed said they had achieved lower sales than last year.
Is the World Cup to blame?
The reason for this was the soccer World Cup, with France's first match coinciding with the first Saturday of the sales, and the high temperatures, which also contributed to the drop in store traffic. Nevertheless, in the second period, the high temperatures boosted purchases of lightweight clothing, which was strongly marked down.
These results are probably also impacted by regular promotions throughout the year, private sales and other special events such as Black Friday. Consumers often take advantage of discounts and no longer associate the price displayed with the real value of the goods, thus minimizing the impact of sales, especially in the first few weeks when markdowns are close to 20%.
E-commerce still under the spotlight
E-commerce is also being called into question, with 79% of retailers this year considering that it represents real competition, compared with 61% in 2015. While the figures are not yet in for the summer sales, it should be remembered that during the 2018 winter sales, 42.9% of purchases were made on the internet compared with 46.9% in-store. Moreover, mobile sales are steadily increasing, even if there are still obstacles (such as screen size and confidence in payment), with the French buying on mobile to avoid the risk of a possible stock-out in store, all the stronger in this busy period.
Towards shorter sales
Faced with these unsatisfactory results, the government has decided to reduce the sales period from 6 to 4 weeks from 2019, the aim being to increase the appeal of the sales by making the event more exclusive. The sales will also be supplemented by more special events lasting 3 to 5 days, such as Black Friday in November, which picks up on an American movement, and French Days, which were launched this spring by several retailers and are set to expand. It remains to be seen whether these measures will be as favorable for the major chains as for independent retailers, who are already dreading the reduction in the sales period. As far as e-commerce is concerned, it should be remembered that merchant websites can be powerful levers for generating traffic to stores by implementing web-to-store functionalities such as e-booking or click-and-collect.