60% of retailers have started sales already due to festive spending concerns

The public’s increasing propensity to leave their festive shopping late has sent retail into a pre-Christmas sale panic.

That’s according to PricewaterhouseCoopers which, according to The Telegraph, says that six in ten High Street stores have already kicked off their post-Christmas sales.

On average, these stores have cut a whopping 42 per cent off their prices – that’s up from the average 36 per cent cut seen last year.

Former Marks & Spencer chief executive Sir Stuart Rose has even said that a game of chicken is going on between stores and customers, who believed they would benefit from lower prices if they waited”.

Toy Retailers Association boss Gary Grant added: November was one of the toughest markets I can remember for many, many years. I think a lot of people have been leaving it later.

There have been significantly more promotions, and a lot more unplanned promotions. Typically, you see 25 per cent off board games, but people are also doing 20 per cent off stunts” on other things, and some key lines are discounted by 40 per cent.

I don’t think consumers have ever had such a competitively priced Christmas.”