The El Corte Inglés centers and the Inditex group start their discounts in stores with a large influx of public
The winter sales arrived this Friday at the El Corte Inglés centers and the Inditex group establishments with a large influx of public and marked by the capacity controls and the measures derived from the pandemic situation for the second consecutive year.
About two hundred people were waiting at the main door of El Corte Inglés on Avenida de la Libertad in Murcia, a concentration of clients that Santiago Sánchez, director of Communication and Institutional Relations of the chain in the Region of Murcia, considered «important in all entrances ». «It has been carried out in an orderly manner. People have become accustomed to maintaining that safety distance, “he said. The head of communication stressed that this sales period will last until February 28. “They are almost two months of sales, so we remind customers that luckily we have many days to buy that product they are looking for.”
Despite the successive records of infections that the Region is setting in this sixth wave, small races were again seen to get products that have discounts of up to 50% and that affect all departments of the chain. The highest demand is concentrated in fashionable areas, with buyers stockpiling items, such as Caridad, a woman who checks the shelves of clothes on the first floor with her husband and who confesses that, although she does not usually go to buy in this first day of sales for work reasons, this year he has taken advantage of his payroll at work. “We have come early trying to avoid crowds,” he asserts. “I have come looking for some specific things, especially clothes, to see if there is something worthwhile, that I need and that is at a good price,” he says. All with the utmost caution. «We come with the FFP2 mask, with the hydrogel, using it every two by three and with the mask well adjusted. And as soon as we see that there are more people we will leave ».
While not all customers show the same fear. Rocío, a secondary school teacher, comes with the aim of renovating the closet without having been vaccinated. «No fear, before we would get sick and go to work, I think it alarms a lot. I come very calm. As I do not like to buy, I take the opportunity to take various things, “he says.
Carlos and Mari Carmen, two retirees who spend the night in the caravan area of Murcia’s shopping centers, come looking for “some opportunity.” They remember what they experienced on their recent trip to France. “There they ask for the vaccination certificate to access all the stores.”
There are also customers who come loaded with bags to the doors of the shops. They are exchanges and returns of gifts from the Three Wise Men. “They have given me a coat, but I have come to see if I change it for another,” says Rafa, a young man who goes to Zara with two friends.
“Online shopping has multiplied”
“It is already the second year of winter sales with this pandemic situation, which I hope we did not have, but we have to know how to live with it,” says Santiago Sánchez, head of communication for El Corte Inglés, who explains that, after a 2020 of “Changes of habits” in the consumer, the demand “has been normalizing.”
Of course, “online sales have multiplied the percentage it represented in sales compared to other years.” For those who have problems receiving the products at home but do not want to buy in person, the option of picking up the products purchased on the web or the app is also available in the store or with the car. In any case, Sánchez declares, the stores comply with “the established standards, with empty stair landings so that there are larger spaces, hydroalcoholic gels, capacity control, cleaning of all surfaces, and so on.”
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