Our guide to the sale of the century

With up to 70 per cent off, now’s the time to bag a bargain online. But hurry because, as SARAH RAINEY warns, it can’t last

PeeR through the window of any clothes shop on your High Street these days and the picture is the same. Last season’s dresses sag on untouched rails. Jumpers languish on shelves. Hats and scarves gather dust by the till.

Since lockdown started, stores have been frozen in time. Retailers across europe have lost an estimated £3.26 billion — a number still shooting upwards. Yet, as restrictions ease, with most shops in england allowed to open from June 15, a flurry of sales are starting, and discounts of 50 per cent or more have appeared online.

Marks & Spencer is even calling its clearance a ‘rainbow sale’, with 10 per cent of purchase prices going to the NHS. But all this raises questions over what exactly shops are selling. What has happened to their stock? Are these last season’s clothes? And how long will the sales last?

Retail analysts estimate there is around £15 billion worth of clothing up for grabs, with some predicting ‘wall-to-wall’ sales over the next six months.

They say there has been little forward planning. ‘There was some indication shops would close, but in the end they couldn’t predict it,’ says Clare Bailey, author of The Retail Champion.

‘As soon as the announcement was made, buyers will have fired off frantic emails to suppliers, trying to figure out who should be paying for what, and where the stock would be stored.’

M&S alone has taken a £145 million hit due to unsold stock, and UK warehouses have reached 90 per cent capacity, with retailers stashing container-loads of clothes in railway sidings and on disused industrial sites.

SToRAge charges at UK ports have risen exponentially, from around £20 per container per day to more than £100 — another burden for struggling shops.

‘Fashion items have ended up at various stages of the supply chain,’ says graham Soult, retail consultant and owner of canny

insights.com. ‘Many items are still with suppliers overseas. There might be rolls of fabric that have not yet been coloured or woven into garments.’

With such disarray comes the vexed question of who pays — and when? Firms such as New Look came under fire for cancelling some 20 per cent of orders and refusing to pay some suppliers. This passes on the risk to small manufacturers, many of whom are in poverty-stricken countries.

In Bangladesh, £2.5 billion worth of textile orders have been cancelled, putting two million factory workers’ jobs at risk.

‘It’s a serious ripple effect,’ says Clare . ‘Without work, many people will lose everything. And when retailers do want to start manufacturing again, they won’t have a supply chain. The longerterm impact in the UK is that prices will rise.’

For now, the most pressing issue is what to do with all the stock. graham says some items could be ‘hibernated’ and sold next year.

‘With summer staples such as T-shirts, shorts and swimwear, it makes sense to hang on to them for 12 months.’

But ultimately, despite the catastrophic environmental impact, an awful lot of unsold stock will end up dumped in tips, where it will be either burned or left to rot. This is especially the case in places such as China, where the practice is largely unregulated.

Autumn/winter collections will be affected, too. ‘Will people really want Christmas party outfits and New Year’s eve dresses?’ asks Clare. ‘Retailers will have to pull back on those orders, too.

‘They don’t know what they’re facing; they can’t use any of their past market research data as this is unprecedented.’

When the High Street does reopen, existing collections will be recalled to warehouses and shipped to stores where they’re likely to sell the quickest.

experts say the sales can’t go on for ever. ‘Sales are costly. You need to sell roughly three or four items before you can justify selling one at half price,’ says Clare.

graham agrees. ‘There won’t be a frenzy of discounting in bricksand-mortar shops, given the rules on social distancing. Retailers can’t be seen to be encouraging people to flock to their stores.’

So make the most of the discounts while you can, with our guide to the corona sales . . .