As at the start of the year, before the sales, the brands offer promotions to their loyal customers.

A little special private sales this year since with the postponement of the sales from January 6 to 20, they last much longer.

While department stores are slashing prices in preview, small traders are chomping at the bit.

It has become a habit for several years: a few days before the sales, traders draw their "private sales", promotions reserved for loyal customers.

Except that this year, the sales, which should have started on Wednesday, have been postponed by two weeks, to January 20.

This does not prevent some brands from already offering large discounts that are similar to disguised sales.

A practice that penalizes small stores, but that the representatives of the traders do not condemn given the difficult economic context at the start of the year.

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Too many private sales kill sales

-30% on household appliances at Cdiscount, -40% on Arthur pajamas, previews at -50% at Galeries Lafayette, discounted price operation at Monoprix… All these promotions have one thing in common: they are reserved for members of the program loyalty of these brands.

Once confidential, these promotional operations are now essential for major brands.

Especially since these private sales are less and less: most loyalty programs are free and a simple online registration is enough to benefit from the discounts before the official sales.  

Usually, these promotions last a week but this year, with the postponement of sales, they are spread over two, three or even four weeks.

"Some brands have started their private sales on December 19. It is much too early", laments Eric Mertz, president of the National Clothing Federation.

"We work all year round with fair prices. But there, with the chain of Black Friday, Christmas and private sales in less than a month, it is not viable," he said. 

The organization is precisely the other particularity of private sales in 2021. "This calendar is a first, it is difficult to anticipate how it will happen", confides a major player in mass distribution.

At Cdiscount, we also have to adapt because stocks are historically low due to supply problems linked to Covid.

Rather than doing all-out promos, the French leader in e-commerce has therefore targeted a selection of major brand products, sold off for its 2.2 million premium members.

"Who knows if we will not be re-defined before the sales?"

For Francis Palombi, president of the Confederation of traders of France, "there are two losers with these private sales".

“First, the small businesses that cannot afford to run promotions for several weeks,” he recalls.

"And then the consumers, who are lost in an avalanche of discounts and who no longer know the exact prices of the products and only see the -50% wholesale on the labels. And that opens the door to scams, with bogus promotions that are window dressing. "

But in the current economic context, Francis Palombi does not condemn these promotions.

"We asked for the postponement of the sales in order to be able to resist the big brands. Whether they do their private sales, we are impatiently awaiting the sales to fully launch the year 2021", he explains.

Eric Mertz does not denounce these "disguised sales" either, but he is a little less optimistic.

“Today, we have no visibility on the future. Will we be re-defined? If so, when?” Asks the president of the National Clothing Federation.

"I understand that the stores, big or small, are making money and taking what there is to take now. Who knows if we will not be reconfigured before the sales?"