Bargain Hunters Raid British Retailers

Shoppers rushing into stores early on Friday have staged the busiest "Boxing Day" in living memory in Britain as retailers slashed prices. But even strong sales might not be enough to save the industry from a severe slowdown as the U.K. heads towards a deep and protracted recession.

General retailer John Lewis said Friday that its sales rose 2.5% in the four days up to Christmas Eve, having experienced the highest-ever Christmas day online orders with a 12.0% increase year-on-year, according to TradeTheNews.com. Christmas day traffic on its Web site was 12 times higher than last year, with pillows, Molton Brown products and televisions the most popular online clearance purchases so far, the department store chain said.

John Lewis was not the only business experiencing high holiday sales. Harvey Nichols and Selfridges, among others, reported long lines of customers anxiously waiting to make the best on offers. "People were running into the store and grabbing bags. Some women had four of five bags in their hands," a spokeswoman for Selfridges said. "Security had to get more people down to the store to help... I've never seen anything like it.” Some stores were offering discounts of as much as 90.0%.

Despite the last-minute surge in sales, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said it had been "a poor Christmas" for the sector. "Discounts and promotions on a scale unprecedented for the run-up to Christmas combined with weak sales have put margins under severe pressure,” said Stephen Robertson, BRC director general. "Government must recognize that every extra tax and regulation has an impact on prices, under-pressure customers and retailers."