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Boxing Day, a holiday the day after Christmas, is a great day of discount in UK stores and therefore shopping. But this year and for four years, it has attracted fewer and fewer consumers and is even overshadowed by Black Friday on November 29, according to first estimates.
The big British brands have already released their calculators: this Thursday of Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, is again losing momentum this year. A trend that is taking hold: last year it attracted 30% fewer customers than Black Friday.
Store sales will drop just over 12% to £ 3.2 billion (€ 3.7 billion), according to VoucherCode and the Center for Retail Research UK retail studies in French). " Boxing Day has slipped in the hierarchy of days dedicated to shopping for a number of years, " confirms Diane Wehrle, director of Springboard, a consumer watchdog company. “ Last year, the number of buyers was 30 % higher on Black Friday. "
This year, according to forecasts, British consumers will spend just over 4 billion pounds sterling (4.6 billion euros). This represents an 11% decrease over the past four years.
The reasons for this decline
There are several reasons for this downtrend. First of all, the Boxing Day discounts are less competitive than the attractive discounts in November and December. A store strategy to attract buyers unwilling to spend because of the climate of uncertainty around Brexit and the country's general elections on December 12.
In addition, with stepfamilies, the British tend to use Boxing Day, not for shopping, but for visiting their parents-in-law, for example.
The hot and humid climate across the Channel did not encourage purchases of winter clothing. And in addition, a wave of liquidations before closing in twenty major brands, House of Fraser, Bonmarché and Mothercare, or Debenhams, allowed consumers to find good deals, without waiting for Boxing Day .
Finally, buyers are getting tired of the discounts, notes Richard Lim, managing director of the consulting company Retail Economics. The only exception: furniture and floor coverings because " consumers are waiting for this sales period for purchases of expensive goods ," he explains.
Online sales competition
The rise of online shopping is also affecting physical sales the day after Christmas. Almost a fifth of retail sales were made online. A total of £ 1.1 billion (nearly € 1.3 billion) will be spent online after Boxing Day, according to the British Center for Retail Studies, an increase of 10% compared to 2018.
In addition, many retailers such as John Lewis and Marks & Spencer are starting to offer online discounts on Christmas Eve, resulting in increased purchases on Christmas Day itself, which decreases the pull of tomorrow's price reductions. Christmas in stores.
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Exception that proves the rule: while many retailers have been offering discounts for months, big brands like Next, John Lewis, Harrods and Selfridges are waiting until December 26 to start them. They then create an event likely to attract crowds and restore luster to the traditional Boxing Day commercial fever.