{"id":918,"date":"2008-12-02T23:30:54","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T13:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/?p=918"},"modified":"2008-12-02T23:30:54","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T13:30:54","slug":"london-on-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/england\/london-on-sale","title":{"rendered":"London on Sale!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"float: right\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1009507070974015\";\r\ngoogle_alternate_ad_url = \"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/google_adsense_script.html\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\ngoogle_ad_format = \"300x250_as\";\r\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text_image\";\r\n\/\/2007-06-30: TSBlog 300x250\r\ngoogle_ad_channel = \"2928184950\";\r\ngoogle_color_border = \"FFFFFF\";\r\ngoogle_color_bg = \"FFFFFF\";\r\ngoogle_color_link = \"FF6600\";\r\ngoogle_color_text = \"000000\";\r\ngoogle_color_url = \"339933\";\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\n  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Remember all those Christmases when you&#8217;ve bought expensive presents for friends and family, only to find that they&#8217;ve been marked down by 50% one day after Christmas!\u00a0 How infuriating it is\u00a0that just one day makes all the difference to the cost of some items, and\u00a0yet we\u00a0don&#8217;t want to be a scrooge and begrudge loved ones the presents that you would like them to have.\u00a0 Christmas is the season for giving right?<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" \" title=\"Debenhams at Christmas\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.travelsignposts.com\/Destination\/d\/48182-3\/_DSC0018.jpg?resize=250%2C150\" alt=\"Debenhams at Christmas\" width=\"250\" height=\"150\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Debenhams at Christmas<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Well, things are a little different this year.\u00a0 The sales have started much earlier and on High Street London and elsewhere, retailers have started offering discounts of 20% to 50% as early as November to snare shoppers who still have the money to spend. The strategy is to get whatever share of household consumption they can before budgets gets tighter. Stores like M&amp;S and Debenhams have also resorted to &#8216;guerrilla tactics&#8217;, paying people to spruik for customers at the rival stores.\u00a0 However, it seems that even with the discounts, sales are slow, with shoppers being warier about spending money.<\/p>\n<p>Large retailers like Woolworths and MFI, who have been around forever, have gone under and many more are predicted to fall victim to the credit crunch.\u00a0 In an effort to boost consumer confidence, the British government has reduced VAT from 17.5% to 15% for 13 months, which isn&#8217;t a lot really.\u00a0 Halving it would be much more attractive.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" \" title=\"Selfridges at Christmas\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.travelsignposts.com\/Destination\/d\/48160-3\/_DSC0008.jpg?resize=250%2C150\" alt=\"Selfridges at Christmas\" width=\"250\" height=\"150\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Selfridges at Christmas<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s a buyer&#8217;s market and savvy shoppers will be sitting tight, in the hope of securing that ultimate bargain.\u00a0 Many of the bigger department stores like Selfridges or Harvey Nichols are expected to discount their products from December 24th.\u00a0 Other shops are also providing promotional vouchers and with a little bit of research, it is not going to be too difficult to find the bargain you&#8217;re after.<\/p>\n<p>After Christmas sales will be even more interesting.\u00a0 Happy Shopping!<\/p>\n<p>Helen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember all those Christmases when you&#8217;ve bought expensive presents for friends and family, only to find that they&#8217;ve been marked down by 50% one day after Christmas!\u00a0 How infuriating it is\u00a0that just one day makes all the difference to the cost of some items, and\u00a0yet we\u00a0don&#8217;t want to be a scrooge and begrudge loved ones [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32],"tags":[1160,1176,1455],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-england","category-london","tag-london-high-street-sales","tag-london-sales","tag-oxford-street-sales"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>London on Sale! 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