Rather than getting rid of old, end-of-season stock at Christmas, Britain’s number 2 department store starts a 4 day sale on Wednesday 8 September. New season lines will have up to 25% reductions.

Debenhams.com

While in mid-July the company completed a £650 million refinancing, the store’s first half sales announced at end-June were hardly overwhelming with like-for-like sales decreasing by 0.4% compared to H1 2009.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that an industry survey found British retail sales values rose 1 percent year-on-year in August, but growth is thought to be boosted by June discounting. Consumers remain cautious. Many experts think UK retailers face a particularly tough winter as the government takes steps to reduce a record public deficit. For this reason it seems Debenhams is implementing another discounting session; in a desperate attempt to simply maintain sales.

Amongst the “tens of thousands” of new lines discounted, even the top designers such as Betty Jackson, Julien Macdonald and Matthew Williamson will see prices, and consequently possibly brand image fall.

For the first time, the introductory offers will be available in eight countries overseas (France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, US, Australia and New Zealand) via Debenhams.com.



By Rosie Hart