WSJ/EU-Digest: European Retailing: "Achtung Christmas Shoppers! - While US Christmas season sales fall - by Cecilie Rohwedder
European Retailing: "Achtung Christmas Shoppers!- While US Christmas season sales fall-by Cecilie Rohwedder
In contrast to the U.S., where pre-Christmas price cuts play a key part in retailers' strategies -- and shoppers' buying plans -- holiday sales mark a small revolution in European retailing. For decades, European retailers could cut prices only during certain periods set by the government. The winter sales, usually in January, came too late for cash-strapped Christmas shoppers.
"Across Europe, decision-making responsibility is shifting from the state to the retailers," says Wolfgang Twardawa, an economist with the Society for Consumer Research in Nuremberg, Germany. But moves to change the rules for when and how people shop have come slowly and brought public soul-searching about life in a consumer society -- as well as stiff resistance from trade unions, churches, and small retailers who say increased flexibility hurts store workers and benefits only large chains. Note EU-Digest: "Meanwhile in the US Christmas season sales at U.S. stores fell for the fourth straight week as rising fuel and food prices threatened to hand retailers their worst holiday shopping season in five years. Spending fell 2.2 percent for the week through Dec. 22 from a year earlier, Chicago-based ShopperTrak RCT Corp. said in a statement today. Discounter Target Corp. said separately that sales at stores open at least a year may decline in December after customer visits slowed following the Thanksgiving holiday. A 7.6 percent increase on the Saturday before Christmas wasn't enough to lift retailers' revenue last week as shoppers grapple with $3-a-gallon gasoline and a deepening housing slump. This year's holiday shopping season may grow at the slowest pace since 2002 as stores struggle to recapture the gains they saw on the Friday after Thanksgiving".
