Forget Christmas New Year’s come early this year!

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Watch out the sales are coming early! Have you noticed that the sale signs are about even though Christmas is still over 3 weeks away? There are promotional banners up everywhere and DFS must be feeling a little put out seeing as they have the 52 week sale more than adequately covered up till now.

On a serious note though, the trigger happy promotion is being seen by many in the trade as an act of desperation. Let’s face it there is a reason why the sales have traditionally always happened between Christmas and new year, because that’s when there are lots of potential customers all full of Christmas pudding and turkey who are all off work at the same time and who all want to get out of the house before they go stir crazy, and the lure of bagging a bargain in the sales is overwhelming.

Clearly most of these kind of sales are based on hype and although there are always genuine savings to be made (it is the law after all) unless you are first in the queue there is usually some kind of compromise to be made if you want the best price. Trying to pull forward sales events before customers have even finished their Christmas shopping is a huge gamble.

Car dealers who are having sales now will be looking to liquidate ageing cars and hopefully replacing them with cheaper versions although, in my experience, cars generally get more expensive in January.

This is usually because of high demand meeting a lack of cars. This year however the situation will be more like a lack of stock with not necessarily high demand as dealer groups look to de-stock and have a healthy balance sheet to satisfy shareholders and give the city confidence.

Whichever way you look at it though there is not likely to be much appetite for a big sales promo before Christmas, but for eagle eyed buyers with cash to spend on a new car it will certainly worth having a close look around as there could very well be some major bargains to be found.