Shops open doors to bargain hunters
Wednesday, 27 Dec 2006 09:19
High street shops are looking forward to a busy approach to the new year
Retailers are anticipating a busy Wednesday as the January sales get well and truly underway.
An enormous flood of returns from unwanted Christmas gifts, together with the lure of price discounting piled upon price discounting, always guarantees a large footfall on December 27th and this year looks set to be no different.
Shopkeepers, who enjoyed a tentatively successful pre-Christmas period, will be hoping that sale volumes carry through into the new year but their profits are likely to be substantially diminished by the low prices required to draw consumers into their stores.
The government believes that, once into the shops, customers may not be able to cope with the simple mathematical procedures required to calculate whether an offer is a good one or not.
Discounts like 'buy one get one half price' and '20 per cent discount' may prove too much for some shoppers, the Department of Education and Skills (DfES) believes.
"We all use numbers every day, but millions struggle to do the kind of basic sums which are so essential to our lives at work and at home," skills minister Phil Hope said.
As a result shoppers will be helped out by teams of 'Get On' campaign helpers on the high streets today, who will offer specially designed sales calculators assisting bargain-hunters up and down the country.