“Shopping malls, hypermarkets and department stores, maybe sunday’s top earners, due to the large air-conditioned common areas, which seem to have attracted those consumers who preferred to make their purchases, but in general we could say that on the first Sunday of the sales the one who finally prevailed was the heat.”

This was noted by the president of the Regional Chamber Council of Attica (PESA) and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Piraeus Vassilis Korkidis in his statement about the commercial traffic in the stores today, Sunday, as part of the summer sales.

As Mr. Korkidis stated:

“The heat of the last few days in Attica, as was expected drove consumers to beaches and vacation homes, rather than commercial. The first Sunday of the sales was “burned” by the high temperatures, since only half of the small and medium-sized commercial enterprises opened voluntarily and apparently without a positive result. Shopping malls, hypermarkets and department stores were probably the most profitable on Sunday, due to the large air-conditioned common areas, which seem to have attracted those consumers who preferred to do their shopping, but in general we could say that on the first Sunday of the sales the one that finally prevailed over all was the heat wave “Kleon”. But the commercial world of Attica, despite the heat wave acting as a deterrent to consumer traffic in the shops of the central shopping streets, maintains intact its optimism and its hopes for greater consumption than last year in the sales. The increase in turnover in the two months of July-August is feasible and is based on the increased tourist flows, during the summer sales period, where foreign visitors will also enter the sum of the turnover with “imported consumption”. This also explains the increased traffic in the center of Athens compared to other markets in Attica. What is desired is of course for domestic permanent consumers to take advantage of favorable prices for their purchases and for retail businesses to liquidate their seasonal merchandise. The retail trade will once again “put its back” to overcome the obstacles of persistent inflation, but also of the temporary heatwave. The summer sales, after the first week from their start, still have a long way to go, until the retail trade of Attica makes cash.”

In the meantime, the Minister of Development, Kostas Skrekas at the official start of the period, he visited small and large shops in Athens and assured that the ministry ensures with control mechanisms that there will be fair discounts for consumers. “We want to prevent phenomena of misleading discounts and I want to assure consumers that the state apparatus will do everything necessary to protect them from unfair commercial practices,” the minister said in his statements. “In the past period, with a new mechanism, we as a ministry have collected product prices from hundreds of stores and store chains. These prices will be compared with in-store prices from today onwards and in cases where fictitious or virtual discounts are found to exist, very severe penalties will be imposed. Therefore, the controls in the market, beyond the on-site levels of the controllers, are also done by electronic means and thus we are developing a complete system of controls” underlined Mr. Skrekas.