It’s called the fourth oratory – the three months before the end of the year make or break for sellers in the run up to Christmas and the later sales period.
But in a difficult year for store organizations, the COVID-19 outbreak has forced consumers to stay at home, which has virtually eliminated traditional sales in January where long lines are often seen outside malls while citizens waited to get a bargain.
On the day after Christmas, known as Boxing Day in the UK, the number of people entering stores (footprints) fell by 63% compared to the previous year, according to data from Springboard sales experts.
Read: Sales collapse in 2020 hits record highs in more than a decade, with experts saying more to come
COVID-19 was to blame but not exclusively. Sales chains, who have to pay expensive rents, workers and energy bills, have been struggling for some time, facing tough competition from online competitors like Amazon AMZN,
This and the introduction of Black Friday in the UK a few years ago, imported from the US, has put down Boxing Day sales, leading some to question whether Wales has a future. the last one.
Diane Wehrle, director of marketing and vision at Springboard, said: “Boxing Day has been attracting fewer retail sales each year in five of the last seven years, as customers turn online to grab the best deals.
“Interestingly, Boxing Day has grown into more of a leisure-based day, with customers embarking on their journeys later in the day, combining shopping trips. by eating out and catching up with family and friends.
“This year, after spending so much time online, consumers are now experts in online shopping, where they know they can get the same discounts, from the comfort and safety of their own home. “
Read: U.S. holiday sales rose 2.4% as online sales jumped
Rebeccah Lawless set up the Osolocal2U website in March 2020 to provide a home delivery service of fresh and tasty food during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.
About 30 years ago she had set up 4DegreesC to provide major restaurants throughout London and the south east of England, including Michelin-starred restaurants, and saw the opportunity of the business model changed to deliver to people’s homes through Osolocal2U when the temporary office closed places.
“Our main business was serving restaurants in offices and in March our business fell 97% overnight,” she told MarketWatch. “We all had the food, the lorries, the fridges and the place, so we decided to deliver home.
“My son Jack set up a website and we made sure we were available over the phone to help customers who were new to online shopping. They learned with us and we now have a retention rate of 90%. ”
The business started with the sale of just 43 new products and now has 2,500 stock lines, specializing in deli, vegan and gluten-free.
“He maintained a large number of our employees,” Lawless said. “And of course it is now a viable business we have chosen to go further into the areas of deli and high quality products that are not sold in supermarkets. ”
A report by the Center for Retail Research, or CRR, compiled for VoucherCodes, estimates that £ 3.2 billion ($ 4.36 billion) was still expected to be taken by UK retailers on Boxing Day but more than half of them went online.
They released a new study today (January 1) which showed that 2020 is one of the worst years for the UK ‘s main streets (shop – lined roads) in the last 25 years, with approximately 3,400 jobs within the sales sector lost each week.
Through 2020, according to end-of-year figures from the CRR, 176,718 jobs were lost from major streets, major shopping destinations, towns and villages, as well as small shop and remote store parades across the UK
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director at the CRR, said he expected more pain for the region in 2021, warning that up to 200,000 more jobs would be lost, saying “yes Our forecast is based on a number of factors such as the cumulative effect of closing months and its impact on cash flow and rent arrears due at the end of the moratorium. While the long-term effects of increased usage by buyers of all types of online sales are likely to cause significant damage to physical stores. “