News.Scotland.Org

Scotland, Dec 22: Most of the stores across Scotland are offering huge discounts in an attempt to counteract the disappointing consumer turn out during the pre-Christmas sales. The stores were opened round the clock this weekend to attract more consumers.

According to the new data the consumer’s morale has declined a great deal soon after the Labour Party came to power in 1997. The high street which otherwise will be a busiest street witnessed a poor shoppers turn out this year. This is considered as the clear indication of the expected decline in the household spending rate following the global credit crunch.

Analysts predict that the low turn out of the consumers will adversely affect the retailers. The Retail Footfall Index shows that the number of shops have seen a steep decline owing to the pressure posed by the increasing rate of internet and the mail order sectors.

While the Office of National Statistics opined that the retail selling rose twice than what it was expected previous month as the internet shopping has witnessed a rapid rise for at least a year. In an attempt to overcome the threat posed by the online shopping the retail shopping centres in Scotland are operating round the clock and they are offering a discount of up to 90 per cent.

“The last year had been a challenging one. This Saturday will be a very big deal for retailers and that is reflected in the store opening hours. In some ways it is not been the best Christmas ever. It will not become a big disaster but it highly depends on how the peak seasonal sale ends,” said Fiona Moriarty, the director of the Scottish Retail Consortium.

With the advent of sophisticated online shopping facility the consumers are not showing lesser tendency to come out to shop in the retail outlets. More consumer friendly approaches have to be adopted to woo consumers to the stores. The huge discount rate is a result of that.

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