The holiday season just over, the month of January arrives with the traditional winter sale. If the concept seems less and less effective, it remains a major event in the beginning of the year for a good part of consumers. Here are the dates to remember for this year 2019.

the dates of The winter sale

● From Wednesday 2 January to Tuesday 12 February 2019 in Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges, as well as in French Guiana.

● Saturday 5 January to Friday 15 February in Guadeloupe.

● Wednesday 9 January to Tuesday, February 19, in the rest of metropolitan France.

● Wednesday, 16 January and Tuesday the 26th of February in Saint-Pierre-and-Miquelon.

● Saturday may 4 to Friday, June 14 at Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélémy.

the dates of The summer sale

● Saturday, 2 February to Friday 15 march at the Meeting.

● Wednesday 26 June to Tuesday 6 August in most of the departments of metropolitan France.

● Wednesday, July 3 to Tuesday, August 13, in the Alpes-Maritimes and Pyrénées-Orientales.

● From Wednesday 10 July to Tuesday 20 August in Corsica.

● Wednesday, July 17 to Tuesday, August 27, at Saint-Pierre-and-Miquelon.

● Saturday, September 28 to Friday, November 8 in Guadeloupe.

● Thursday 3 October to Wednesday 13 November in Martinique and Guyana.

● Saturday 12 October to Friday 22 November in Saint-Barthélémy and Saint-Martin.

Why the different dates?

The date of the balance is set automatically by the law:

winter sales begin on the 2nd Wednesday of January, unless it falls after the 12th, in which case they begin on the 1st Wednesday, and, since 2015, spread over 6 weeks.

The summer sales start on the last Wednesday of June, unless it falls after 28, in which case they start on the second last Wednesday, and, since 2015, spread over 6 weeks.

However, some departments have been granted derogations specific to the dates of the balances correspond to those of the neighbouring countries. This is the case of the Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges. The winter sale is starting a week earlier than in the rest of the Hexagon. They correspond to the balances of Luxembourg, which allows to avoid unfair competition.

" READ ALSO - Kick off of the winter sale in some of the departments

How are organized the sales?

These periods are especially important to shops are defined as sales accompanied or preceded by publicity and advertised as tending, by a price reduction, the flow accelerated goods in stock". Regulated, they allow businesses to sell at a loss. Their dates are set by the State and they are held twice a year, in January and in June.

there will be No waivers granted for 2019

due to the end of the year 2018 catastrophic for the traders, because of the crisis of the "yellow vests", Francis Palombi, the president of the Confederation of independent traders of France, had asked at the end of December to move ahead with the early promotions on 2 January. But the majority of the federations shopping district were opposed to this request, since it considered being in the material impossibility of being ready on that date, and the inability to recruit enough staff.

Bercy has decided not to change the official date of the beginning of the promotions: the balances will begin, therefore, in the majority of cases, the 9th of January, as planned.

" READ ALSO - "yellow Vests": businesses want to bring forward the balances for the restart of the activity

Project of reduction of the duration of balances

on The 27th of September 2018, the national Assembly has adopted article 8 of the law Covenant (action Plan for growth and business transformation), which is to reduce the sales period from 6 to 4 weeks. In January 2019, this bill will be considered in the Senate. Except as may be modified in the course of the review, the article 8 shall enter into force 6 months after the promulgation of the law. We cannot for the moment not know if it will be effective for the summer sales this year.

" READ ALSO - The government is seeking to re-invigorate balances

The goal of this project is to concentrate price reductions on a shorter time, and thus enhance their impact. This project is part of a difficult environment for traders: for the past several years, the balances are less and less recipe. A phenomenon due to two main causes: the increase of other promotional periods (sales, private, "black friday") that tends to trivialize the concept of balances, and the growing development of online sales.

Date Of Update: 04 January 2019, 00:00