The market and consumers are moving in festive rhythms with commercial enterprises preparing for a festive “breath” of liquidity.

December is traditionally one of the most critical months for business coffers with a quarter of annual store turnover being achieved over the Christmas and New Year holidays. For their part, consumers are becoming “smart” bargain hunters as limited disposable income and inflationary pressures on essential goods have significantly curtailed their Christmas spending.

As far as the festive table is concerned, in the supermarkets the “household basket” turns into a “Christmas basket” from Wednesday, December 13 until Wednesday, January 3.

In this context, six items are added to the household basket – turkey, lamb, goat, king pie (tsoureki), chocolate and tsoureki – which most consumers buy for the festive table. Essentially, as far as fresh meat is concerned, the festive basket includes turkey, lamb and goat, but also pork and beef as these items are also in the consumer’s basket.

Also, in the next few days the “Santa’s Basket”, so that every family can buy toys at affordable prices. The categories that will be included are, among others, board games, baby toys, stuffed animals, dolls, construction toys, etc.

At the same time, the discussions of the Minister of Development, Kostas Skrekas with the representatives of the market continue and as he recently announced, the market was asked to reduce the prices of lamb by up to 10% as well as to maintain, at last year’s levels, the prices of honey macaroni and kourabiedes.

At the same time, the minister underlined that checks continue with unabated intensity across the entire range of products and services, while, soon, consumers themselves will be able to directly report violations they detect through the eKatanalotis application.

But in the battle against accuracy, in addition to the holiday basket, consumers can also search for 1,286 items from 100 companies participating in the “permanent price reduction” initiative. According to Mr. Skrekas, the weighted average decrease in prices of these 1,286 items is 5.5% as prices have decreased, for at least six months, at a rate that starts from 5% but in some items even reaches 10%.

With regard to the controls, the minister in his recent statements underlined that: “Upholding legality and respecting all debtors without discrimination is an absolute priority for the government and anyone who violates the law will pay a heavy price. Every day the Ministry of Development receives 10-20 complaints on the 1520 telephone line, which are checked, cross-referenced and after that the competent services intervene.”

In fact, by the end of the month, the e-katanalotis application will be added, through which every citizen will be able to send a photo of the product or a message, when he realizes that there is an illegality, and the relevant services will take care of the matter. Also, regulation is underway in early 2024 that is expected to put an end to virtual offers.

  • The holiday season starts on December 12th. Shops are open on Sundays 17, 24 and 31 December