UK retailers quietly confident about Christmas, IRX research

Almost 75% of retailers are expecting their Christmas sales to be better than last year, but for the biggest proportion (31%) they will only be slight improvements. That’s according to research from IRX, incorporating eDX, which is set to take place on 1st and 2nd April 2020 at the NEC.

52 UK-based retail chains and online retailers were surveyed. 47.5% had started their pre-Christmas discount period earlier, with the majority (61.4%) offering similar money off deals year-on-year and 59.4% discounting a similar number of items from their range.

Many retailers actually revealed a fair degree of optimism, with 14.6% expecting ‘a very much better’ Christmas, while, by contrast, a similar proportion, 10.8%, said they were anticipating seasonal sales to be ‘significantly worse.’

“While the majority are, to some extent, optimistic, there is a wide range of different expectations,” says Stuart Barker, Portfolio Director at IRX. “And that is well reflected by the similar proportions expecting business to be either very much better or significantly worse this year. It will be fascinating to see what the actual sales reports reveal early next year.”

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