Early Sales Depress Winter Season

As the sale period nears, retailers should be taking note of the weather. If the torrential rain and high winds of the past two weeks are anything to go by, the British are in for a long and depressing winter.

The crazy situation the fashion retail industry has allowed itself to get into, with selling seasons hopelessly out of sync with our climatic reality, has been highlighted this week with the generally downbeat reports of current trading. The annual sale before the Christmas tree has been decorated seems particularly inappropriate this year.

Nothing is going to change, of course. The fashion business sometimes appears to be a runaway train, with no one at the helm. The arguments about cashflow, factories' manufacturing cycles, consumers who want to buy next season's goods early, etc, will be colliding with grim weather in January, February and March.

The proliferation of pre-Christmas Sales is rather worrying. Debenhams' recently had a three-day fashion spectacular and Allders last week extensively promoted a done-day sale, with "up to 50 per cent off fashion." With less than four weeks before Christmas and retailers promoting half-price sales, these are not signs of a healthy retail market.