Galery

1

In the last days before the long awaited January discounts the situation in the Athens stores is relatively calm. The central commercial street Ermou in the capital is not busy as usual, not crowded with people. There is a difference in the people who do not carry bags of various brands with the things they bought inside as they usually do. People are out going from shop to shop doing the so called “scanning” or choosing goods to buy, whose price in three days will be decreased with 20% to 70%.

The manager of one of the most famous stores on the commercial street said for GRreporter: “At the moment everybody waits for the official discounts which start from the fifteenth of this month. As it is in every other year the turnover in January is a lot smaller compared to other months. Now most wanted are the cheaper commodities, whose value would not seriously affect the monthly budget of the households, meaning that their price is low enough not to affected by the fore coming discounts.” For the period of Christmas shopping the manager said: “December 2009 was very successful for as well as for all the other sales people in the center of Athens compared to the same period last year. The reason for this is that in the end of 2008 for two weeks in the center were running riots of anarchists and the shops were closed. Even after the things calmed down people were afraid to come in the central part of the town.”

During our conversation there were crowds of people in the shop (mainly women from all ages) who were rushing in, looking through two or three neatly arranged shelves with cotton vests and linen shirts in the front part and then they were quickly going on the upper floors. Then rushing again they were going out of the shop and entering right away in the next one to choose their Saturday shopping. The shop assistants call this period “calm down before a storm” – there are little sales, however in the first day of the official discounts everybody will rush into the shops like this would be the last day before banning the shopping.

Discounts start from Friday, January 15 and will last until February 28. In this period the stores selling clothes, shoes, accessories and even electrical appliances will have discounts and promotional prices of the goods they offer. In this period only the goods from the spring, which should appear on the selves of the shops in the middle of February will not have discounts.