Winter Sales: Lots of Window-shopping but Few Transactions

The first twenty days of Greece’s winter sales period can broadly be characterized by window-shopping, which does not translate into actual transactions, according to TaNea.

Feeling the continued squeeze on household spending, Greeks are only reaching into their pockets to buy essentials or low-cost items.

In fact, many merchants who exceptionally open on the first three Sundays of the sales period observed the slow movement from the first two weekends and chose to stay closed on the third.

The Vice President of the Athens Chamber of Tradesmen said that although there are steep discounts by merchants that are trying to push their stock, consumer traffic has been slow because people do not have money to spare.

Data shows that about half of Greek households have cut spending on clothing, footwear, household goods, furniture and electrical appliances, and this trend is seen extending into 2024.

This is because 4 out of 10 households barely meet the needs of the month and other recent reports show that 7 out of 10 families have had to cut back nonessential spending due to food prices.

If the slow movement at shops during the first 20 days of January is any indication, it seems that the commercial world will miss the mark of at least achieving last year’s levels of turnover of 6 billion euros, which was posted January-February 2022.