“Compared with other years, the budgets allocated for the winter holiday are much smaller. Friends and family also have limited winter holiday budgets. The crisis is very much felt, although politicians on TV say it isn’t,” says a pensioner shopping in AFI Palace Cotroceni. “But I’ve seen people buying very expensive things, toll,” adds his wife.
In order to get a feel of how shopping is going, ZF on Sunday went to three Bucharest malls, AFI Cotroceni, Plaza Romania and Unirea Shopping Center.
Retailers are less willing to provide data about December, most of them saying these data have to do with the company’s internal strategy, with figures being “leaked” only by those who boast higher sales and are happy with their performance.
Retailers in Bucharest’s AFI Palace Cotroceni have sales of around half a billion euros at a traffic of nearly 70,000 people per day. But in December, amid higher traffic, sales could be higher, as well, according to ZF estimates.
Limited budgets
Most buyers say they have limited their shopping budgets and will definitely not buy more than in 2010. This is said at a time when consumption continued to decline this year, with the cumulated decline in 2009-2011 nearing 20%.
“This year I will not buy expensive gifts and in general holiday spending will not be higher than last year, I did not see discounts in the stores which is very upsetting,” says a shopper in Plaza Romania shopping mall in western Bucharest.
Shoppers are not very happy about the prices in Unirea Shopping Center, either.
“I went through several stores, but didn’t see very significant discounts. That is why I didn’t do a lot of shopping,” says a young woman in Unirea Shopping Center. She adds that this year’s budget is not bigger than in 2010.
Unhappy with the discounts
Although shoppers are not happy with the promotional offers and discounts thrown their way, retailers do have signs such as “Super Promotions” and “30% Discount on the second item bought” ads in their windows.” Tina R and Kenvelo promised discounts of up to 50%. At Geox they ranged between 15 and 30%.
Sweden’s H&M store windows display the ad “Super Promotion”. Inside the store, there were around ten people queuing, while a few tens more were “browsing” through the store.
“I found something to buy here not be because there are major discounts, but because I was lucky.”
But other shoppers were not as lucky. “I didn’t see many stores offering discounts, but I have not done my Christmas shopping yet, I intend to go though the stores this week,” says Georgiana Urzica, 30, who works in marketing.
The official discount period starts in mid-January. Then prices can fall by up to 70% of the initial price. Now the stores have promotional offers. The difference between the two periods is that during the discount period, which officially starts on January 15, prices fall more and more products are targeted by the price discount.
What do the sales clerks say?
In turn, sales personnel say that, although there is traffic, people go in, look around, and leave without buying anything.
“Compared with last year, sales have been much weaker, not just now, in the last weekend ahead of the holidays, but throughout December. Customers come to the stores, look around, but don’t buy much,” says the manager of a clothing shop in Plaza Romania.
Although people go the malls, they are not very willing to spend, and a sign of this is the fact that most coffee shops in the malls are empty.
What do retailers say?
Fashion retailers say, however, that sales in the past weekend were better than in a normal weekend. Some believe it was even better than the similar weekend of 2010, with sales up by as much as 10-20%.
“Sales are going better than in a normal weekend, but we don’t see any major differences from the same weekend last year, “says Philippe Besadoux, who runs operations of Kenvelo, Lee Cooper, and Tom Tailor on the Romanian market.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)