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Early birds beat the credit crunch

Deanna Delamotta
18/ 7/2008

AS the credit crunch continues to bite, retailers are vying with each other to offer the best bargains.

Nowhere is this more in evidence than in our high street fashion stores where massive discounts are being proffered to cash-strapped customers.

Diehard sales-trawlers will know that it pays to wait until the last days of July to bag the best deals. Many stores start by offering discounts of up to 50 per cent but as the weeks pass and those kaftans and maxi frocks start to look tired, the "75 per cent off" stickers come out.

It really pays to hold your nerve and wait until the last minute.

But for those who aren't in it for the long haul, and don't mind a long, long queue, NEXT is the place to be tomorrow morning.

Most stores open at 5am, but you need to make sure you're there even earlier to bag the best offers. Those who tell you, "There's never anything in the NEXT sale," in the same tired tone that they say, "There's nothing on the telly," are too fainthearted by half.

Anyone who isn't prepared to get up early will almost certainly miss the cut-price kiddies' clothes, furniture steals and men's suits (in regular sizes) as these will have long since been snapped up.

Instead, they'll have to content themselves with love-heart sweets which staff will be giving out to frazzled shoppers.