What will 2021 winter sales look like? (1)

We are living in a historical period that is marking everything. COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on commerce, consumers and businesses.

Nothing is normal at all, so it is foreseeable that 2021 winter sales will not be safe either from everything that is dragging this virus that is turning everything upside down. Let's see what the most widespread forecasts and trends are.

This is not something we can blame on the coronavirus. In fact, we have been seeing a certain decline in customer interest in the January sales (a real seasonal highlight not so long ago). Why is this the case? Well, it is due to different questions.

On the one hand, we have a freer market in terms of sales and offers. It is relatively easy to find bargains all year round. In addition, the portfolios arrive exhausted at the beginning of the year. It's no longer just a matter of Christmas campaign: we are also affected by the fact that we have been dragging the Black Friday effect on since November.

It is said that money is easily scared. It may sound like a catchphrase, but it is true.

One of the main brakes on online and offline sales is precisely uncertainty. A context of job and financial instability like the one we are living in makes customers much more reflexive when it comes to facing purchases (goodbye to impulse buying).

And that is in the case of those who have doubts about their short and medium-term future. Unfortunately, others already have the certainty of reduced income in their families.

The result is a lower average budget for the winter sales. According to the portal Iahorro, the Spanish will devote only 93 euros to their purchases in this period (3.3% less than in 2020).

All this has a decisive influence when it comes to creating a mood that is not favorable to the purchase of anything that is not indispensable.

Of course, the coronavirus has accelerated even further the cruising speed that e-commerce already carried. This is a fact that cannot be doubted.

Obviously, during the hardest phase of the lockdown, retail options simply disappeared. Stores closed and there was no other way to shop than via the Internet. This generated an inertia that is still noticeable, and opened the channel to new, reluctant users.

Then came a certain opening, the hope of vaccines... but also a third wave that coincided, precisely, with January and winter sales.

This sends many stores to the start line (in the best case scenario). With the new restrictions, we are forcing ourselves to live through online sales or, directly, to not have them at all.

National authorities rule out a total new lockdown, but public opinion is concerned that contagion is on the rise and even in other countries around us, radically tightening up the measures.

Somehow, this favors the same niches that grew during the confinement (home entertainment, exercise and physical care, furniture ...) and penalizes others such as tourism, outdoor recreation, hospitality or, this is striking, the textile sector, which is being hit hard by this crisis.

Surely, depending on how vaccination issue is dealt with, they will not start coming out of the tunnel until the summer season.