Spanish "Rebajas"
Will you be in Spain for the end-of-season sale period? If so, read on for some helpful tips. Twice a year in Spain shoppers are treated to an end-of-season sale period, called las rebajas, in which goods can be purchased at a significant discount. These discounts range from 30% off at the beginning of the sale period, called primeras rebajas, to up to 70% off at the end of the period, called últimas rebajas.
End-of-season sales allow vendors, especially clothing vendors, to sell off the last season’s stock, empty their warehouses and make room for new apparel or models. Spanish rebajas are regulated by local governments. Governments regulate discount advertising particularly closely, requiring stores to demonstrate that the original prices for the rest of the year were indeed those implied by the discount. To put a 50% off ticket on a 15€ sweater, for example, they must prove that for the rest of the year they were charging 30€ for the same sweater. This government oversight provides otherwise wary consumers with a degree of confidence in the veracity of discount advertising claims and so greatly increases sales, allowing vendors to effectively and reliably sell off their stock and even reverse a slump in sales for the year. In Spain, up to 20% of a store’s total sales in a year happen during rebajas.
A Spanish store announces its best discounts.
As mentioned, there are two major sale periods in Spain every year. These are las rebajas de invierno (winter sale) and las rebajas de verano (summer sale). Generally speaking, the winter sale begins on January 7th, the day after Epiphany, and lasts through February and in some cases even into March. The summer sale begins on July 1st and lasts until the end of August. Increasingly, though, this varies as regional and even municipal governments make their own rules. In the city of Madrid, for example, the winter sale formally began on January 1st this year while Madrid’s summer sale will start on June 21st, a full week before everyone else. This clever bit of municipal legal engineering provokes a flood of early consumers looking to get the jump on everyone else into Madrid from the surrounding area. It might also lend some credence to a common quip of Spaniards from other regions that “Madrid always has to be first.”
This year's bargains are aggressively priced.
The most popular items fly off the shelves in the first weeks of the sale period – along with the most common clothing sizes. It is near the end of rebajas you can find the cheapest buys, but it may be much more difficult to find what you’re looking for as all that’s left by then are usually the most unwanted items. The best deals can generally be found during segundas rebajas, in the middle of the sale period. Nevertheless, it is possible to find some real bargains during últimas rebajas if you are patient and persistent enough, especially if your clothing size is not average. This year many merchants have languished due to the world recession and so have begun the winter sale with very aggressive discounts of 50% off right from the beginning in a bid to reverse their fortunes. So if you’re lucky enough to be in Spain for the sale season, seize the opportunity to do a bit of shopping on the cheap!
Need to practise your regateo (haggling) in Spanish? Take some Spanish lessons abroad to hone those haggling skills down to a fine art.
