Having reported the gloomy predictions of this year’s Christmas trading, I will tell you now some contradictory news which has just come out from Deloitte, the accountants. They predict that shoppers will spend a record amount of money this Christmas. “The average Briton will spend £706 on gifts, socialising, food and drink this Christmas.
This is 7% more than they spent last year, a rise of more than three times the rate of inflation.” While carrying out its survey, Deloitte discovered that shoppers had totally ignored the impact of the Northern Rock crisis and other belt tightening measures when planning their Christmas spending. Does this surprise you?
An undoubtedly good piece of news which I want to share with you is the emergence of a new web service MyLocalOffers.com that “arrives to give small traders a bigger slice of local business – for free!” It is the first site of this kind helping local businesses to use the web as a marketing tool to compete with national brands. All that a local business has to do is to prepare a special offer for local customers which is then placed into the system – at no cost to the trader. Defuturo ltd, the originator of the service plans to add shortly a number of premium services (this time – paid for) to the site. Like every new idea, this one, however, needs to be tested to prove its worth. This could be done as a seasonal offer in a true Christmas spirit.
Wishing you a very merry Christmas from all of us at IER.
Anna Ryland, Editor
