Last Saturday the summer sales 2019 finished to conquest whole Italy.
After the invasion of Campania (June 29th), followed by those of Sicily and Liguria (July 1st) and Basilicata (July 2nd), July 6th was the turn of all the other regions, as planned.
The launch of the sales marks the time to buy that designer suit that at full price would have been out of budget (I just hope my size is still available!) or to give yourself something that would not be so necessary… but sometimes a cuddle is not a pity, especially if spiced with a taste of discount.
So, the hunt to the best price has started!
This year the summer sales period is particularly important in Italy, as sales in the previous months did not generally give good results. The president of FederModaMilano and the Italian Fashion Federation, Renato Borghi, reminds us about this in an article written by Roberto Pacifico and published on Mark Up.
Given the sales disaster in the season, which has overwhelmed a sector based on the seasonality of products, we hope that the dormant desire for shopping in the past months will wake up, turning into a growth in purchases.
[Renato Borghi]
Perhaps an obvious question: what are seasonal discounts for?
In addition to selling, the purpose of retailers is to get rid of the remaining stock of the previous season, which should be sold off rather than stored, with the related costs.
We asked ourselves: in addition to those on storefronts, what are the percentages of the 2019 summer sales?
The sales potential is measured with the footfall, because only those who go to the store can buy something. Therefore, the first KPI to look at in order to assess the effects of the summer discounts, even before sales, is the traffic amount of people they call, compared to the previous period. This can be obtained only with the people counting systems.
Analyzing the situation of about 50 Shopping Centers located in the regions where the sales began on 6th July 2019, we can observe the following.
If we compare Saturday 6th July 2019 with the same weekday of the previous week (Saturday 29/06/2019), we can appreciate a +20.02% of people, with a peak of increase in daylight hours from 3 pm to 4 pm (+30,.7%). In the evening hours, from 9 pm to 12 am, the increase reaches +33.61%.
Below there is the chart of the hourly trend.
Looking at the analogue for the year 2018, or the comparison between Saturday 7th July 2018 (day of the beginning of the summer sales) with the homologous day of the previous week (Saturday 30/06/2018), we can note a bigger increase if compared to that in 2019, at different times in the day and especially in the evening segment: a total +31.85% of visiting people, with a peak in daylight hours from 9 am to 10 am (+40.5%); in the evening hours, from 9 pm to 12 am, the increase reaches +122.76%!
Finally, if we compare the people entered between the starting day of summer sales in 2019 and in 2018, the result is -2.73%, with losses especially in the central hours of the day: -7.32% from 12 pm to 4 pm, with the minimum from 12 pm to 1 pm (-9.18%). From 9 pm to 12 am there was a less negative result of -0.04%.
The overall balance of the discounts will be made at the end of the entire period, with an eye also on the data about sales. It is however well known that the starting day of the sales is the day that usually shows one of the greatest peaks for the increase in footfall, as can also be seen from the comparison between July 2018 and June 2018.
Therefore, this is only a first picture of the traffic carried in the Italian shopping centers on the occasion of the start of the summer sales 2019, which gives us very interesting clues and the possibility of making predictions about what to expect.
And while we are waiting, good shopping to everyone!
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