France's winter sales kick off this Wednesday, but is excitement for these bargain periods a thing of the past? In this edition of Entre Nous, we discuss why small shop owners are concerned about the timing and duration of "les soldes". Some say they need to change. We also break down the very specific rules for these four weeks of bargains and how the clothing industry is particularly feeling the pinch.
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It's time now for our Entre-Nous segment with Solange Mougin, who joins me on the set.
00:03Hi, Solange.
00:04Hi, Katie.
00:05So here in France, it's sales time.
00:06There are these biannual sales that start today, mostly across the country, but there
00:10are a lot of shop owners who really aren't entering into this particular season with
00:14high hopes.
00:15Why?
00:16Well, normally the sales in France are an exciting time, of course, for consumers looking
00:21for a bargain, but also for retailers as it allows them to get rid of their stock and
00:26to get people in the shops.
00:27January is, in fact, the second most important shopping month for clothing and shoes in France.
00:34This is after December with Christmas purchases.
00:37But increasingly, a number of shop owners are saying that the timing is off for these
00:42winter sales, that they aren't as effective as they once were.
00:45Not only do they come just after the holidays, where some households may have stretched their
00:49budgets a bit, but they also come on the heels of the increasingly popular Black Friday discounts,
00:55which in France is often actually spread out over a number of weeks in November and
00:59sometimes even into December.
01:00Now, according to a poll by the Union of Independent and Small Shop Owners, the majority of these
01:06retailers will participate in the sales and the discounts, but nearly nine out of ten
01:11of them say that they are worried about the economic climate, and 64% say that these sales
01:17will not be sufficient to sell off their stock.
01:20So there are increasingly pushes among some retailers to have the government either change
01:25the dates of the sales or to make them a bit shorter and a bit snappier, more of an event.
01:29Because we have to remind everyone that actually the rules in France over sales and discounts
01:33are quite strict.
01:34Yeah, they are.
01:35And they have been since 1906, when the government set up a law to ensure that the prices didn't
01:40continue to drop between the newly created Grands Magasins, or competing department stores.
01:46Since then, there have been a number of laws that have tried to keep up with changing consumer habits.
01:51Currently, the rules in France are the following.
01:54There are two official sales periods of the year.
01:56The winter ones begin in most of the country on the second Wednesday of January.
02:00So this year it's between January 8th and February 4th.
02:04The summer ones generally begin on the last Wednesday of June, and they also last for
02:10four weeks for a month.
02:11As for the rules, this is the only time that businesses can sell at a loss, with discounts
02:16often going to the minus 70% range.
02:19Both the original price and the discounted price need to be shown on the little tags
02:25to keep shops from cheating with, say, subpar items that are made just for the sales, while
02:31the product must also be purchasable for at least a month before the sales start.
02:36And also, and this is important, the word sold or sales cannot be used at any other
02:41time of the year.
02:43Retailers risk hefty fines if they do this.
02:46And retailers do do other discounts at other times of the year.
02:49They often have to use terms like vente privée, bonnes affaires, promotion, which cannot be
02:55as big of a bargain as les soldes.
02:59Even if some shop owners aren't that optimistic about this year, others are, as Black Friday's
03:06figures this year were actually quite good, and some French people, while they still do
03:10wait for the sales, which means that it can be a busy time and generally is a busy time
03:14in shops and online.
03:16Be it in the summer or winter, sales are always a key moment.
03:21It's always a time when we have to be ready.
03:26It represents some 40% of our yearly revenue between the summer and winter sales.
03:31So we're expecting to have four intense weeks.
03:35So some clothing retailers, they're talking about the sales, but their sector is actually
03:38going through quite a tumultuous time at the moment.
03:40Yeah, according to the French Institute of Fashion, or the IFM, clothing sales in France
03:47in 2024 were stable.
03:49That is if we compare them to the previous year, to 2023.
03:52However, compared to five years prior to 2019 or pre-COVID, last year's sale figures were
03:58still 7% down from pre-COVID times.
04:03So inflation has and continues to take its toll on the sector, which overall employs
04:07a million people in France and brings in some 154 billion euros.
04:12Now, many of these jobs are less secure than they once were.
04:16In 2023, the fashion industry lost at least 4,000 jobs, according to the sector's Chamber
04:22of Commerce.
04:23Overall, it says that 37,000 jobs have been cut over the past decade.
04:28Major French mid-range brands like Camailleur, San Marino for shoes, they have gone bankrupt.
04:34Others like Naf-Naf, Pinky, Gap have shut their shops, gone largely online, or stopped
04:39selling in France entirely.
04:41Even the iconic Galerie Lafayette, the department store, has had to be saved from shuttering.
04:47The reasons for these struggles are many.
04:49There's a boom of cheaper clothes, of fashion.
04:53There's of course inflation and household tightening of their belts.
04:56There's also the cost of retail real estate, combined with shoppers increasingly purchasing
05:02online.
05:03And there is, of course, the growing second-hand market.
05:06But there is a little bit of a glimmer of hope for this sector, and that at least the
05:11morose showing of last summer's sales and the post-COVID slump may be coming to an end.
05:17Revenue at the end of 2024 was up by nearly 3% across some 60 major brands.
05:23But nonetheless, French people continue to save their pennies not to spend.
05:27There's some 6,000 billion euros deposited in savings accounts in France.
05:31We'll have to see if the French want to spend some of that money over les soldes or not.
05:37It's true.
05:38The French are record savers.
05:39All right, Solange.
05:40Thanks for that look at the sales.
05:41And go out there and have fun if you want to take advantage of the sales yourself and
05:44if you're in France at this time of year.
05:46Thank you so much.