The reduction labels have started to appear again and the indication “sales” has replaced that of “private sales” in shops since Thursday morning: Lorraine is the first French territory to launch sales.
Winter sales traditionally start a week earlier than the rest of mainland France in Lorraine, due to its proximity to Luxembourg and Belgium, where sales start on Thursday and Friday respectively this year.
They will end on January 29 in the four Lorraine departments: Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges.
“Expectations are still very high for the winter sales,” Sébastien Duchowicz, president of the Vitrines de Nancy commercial association, explains to AFP.
“In general, the clientele is rather there” and thus equips themselves for “six or seven months of the year” given the temperatures in Lorraine, he indicated.
For the kick-off, “the weather conditions are not great” however this Thursday morning: it is raining in Metz or Nancy.
“But we have this advantage of starting before the rest of France. The customers are still on school holidays,” says Mr. Duchowicz.
These reduction periods, regulated by law, also make it possible to “support your local businesses”, recalls the Federation of Metz Traders on its social networks.
This year, customers mostly did their Christmas shopping at the last minute, according to Mr. Duchowicz. “We really worked very well and we really felt that we were in a rush almost six days before Christmas,” he explains, which created “very busy” days, but in the end, “the turnover was there,” he assures.
“The private sales phase, just after Christmas, went well” also in Nancy.
It is now necessary to get the sales off to a good start since “everything is generally done over the first seven or even ten days”, according to the retailer.
In other mainland departments, sales will take place from January 8 to February 4 inclusive.
Dates vary Overseas. In Guadeloupe, they will begin on Saturday, and only on January 22 in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
