Читать книгу The Checkout Girl - Tazeen Ahmad - Страница 29

As news of Next’s and Debenhams’ drop in sales hit the headlines, the Boxing Day sales flurry is fast becoming a fading memory. But it’s not all doom and gloom; John Lewis has bucked the credit crunch curse and New Look has had a pretty robust performance over the festive period. My shift begins with news of Sainsbury’s Christmas sales making the headlines. The shop has beaten the national trend of retail gloom and enjoyed its ‘best ever Christmas performance’. Richard’s updated newsletter reports that ‘sales have shot through the roof’ over Christmas and that we all ‘provided excellent service at the checkouts, especially those who got into the Christmas spirit’.

It’s the astute Basics range that may pull the supersonic supermarket through this recession. Basics has seen a sales rise from 40 per cent a year ago. I’m certainly seeing it at the till as customers come to me, their trolleys laden with an entire shop from this range. An analyst quoted in the news says, ‘Sainsbury’s appears to be gauging the mood of UK consumers extremely well…It’s capitalising on its perceived offering of quality products, combining aggressive pricing promotions in the hope of capturing consumers’ desires to “feel good” in the face of an economic downturn while reducing expenditure.’ But he had a bleak warning too; with a vulnerable UK economy, the store was left more exposed than Tesco, which has an international portfolio.