Printemps

07.02.2022

Annual sales, a Printemps creation

Did you know that this yearly ritual was invented by Jules Jaluzot, the founder of Printemps?


While most stores of the time still attempted to unload their old merchandise by discreetly placing it among their new items, Jules Jaluzot, dared to take a more transparent route: in 1866, two months after the store’s opening, he announced in the press: “on January 15 we are going to sell at a discount price all our new items from the winter season, all the worn and faded items we have since the opening of our stores, and we will continue to do so on a periodic basis every year.

 

With this manner of operating, we will never keep old merchandise, so that whenever we sell an item as new, we can be sure that it is as fresh and new as the name of our store.” And that is how seasonal sales, repeated every year in January and June, were born! 
 
1. Crowds rush to the sales at Printemps, Rue du Havre, in the 1900s
2. Sales catalog, 1914
3. Sales catalog, 1927

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