Majorcan retailers buoyed by lucrative 1st week of Winter Sales

Nevertheless, the remaining 42 percent claimed they were deeply disappointed with results, saying that they had pinned their hopes on recovering pre-Christmas losses with a Winter Sales boom. Of those who weren't pleased with the first week of discounts, 22 percent said that there “just weren't enough shoppers around” whilst a much higher 78% said that people “weren't willing to spend money.” As part of Pimeco's survey, comparison was made between sales which were made during this first week of discounts and the same period of Winter Sales in 2011. Only 15 percent of retailers said they had done better this year than last, 30 percent said they had sold less and 55 percent said there was no difference.

Poorer prospects
But nearly half of those small businesses interviewed by Pimeco didn't hold out much hope that the second week of Winter Sales might be as encouraging as the first. Just under half (46%) of those taking part in the survey expected business to take a turn for the worse in the second week, 42 percent predicted there would be no change and just 12% said sales would increase. Most participants said that they were applying higher discounts to stock in this year's Winter Sales than they had in 2011 and the remainder said discounts were the same.

Pimeco said, by way of summing up, that the first week of Winter Sales had met with expectations of the association members but that it would be necessary to wait until later in the sales campaign to make a proper assessment of how successful it has been compared to other years.