Some of Britain’s biggest stores will be trying to entice shoppers back through their doors today with record reductions of up to 70 per cent after disappointing Christmas takings.

Despite competition from the internet, where web store sales began at one minute past midnight on Christmas Day, high street queues were expected at dawn this morning, ready to snap up the clothes, electronics, furniture and household goods that failed to sell in a Christmas season marred by a credit crunch and rising bills.

Richard Dodd, of the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said: “It is going to be a bumper year in January sales in terms of the number of discounts on offer, which is good news for customers, but not such good news for retailers. I think these will be the best January sales customers have seen for some years.”

Tim Denison, director of the retail consultancy SPSL, said: “You are going to see price cuts of 50, 60, 70 per cent, and it will be on a vast amount of ranges. London in particular will see a bonanza for shoppers.”

At the high street clothes chain Next, the sales were due to start at 5am in Scotland and the same time tomorrow in England, with everything reduced by more than half this year.

Not to be outdone, 142 Marks & Spencer stores across the country will open three hours early at 6am tomorrow, with all furniture discounted by up to 50 per cent, and clothes by up to 70 per cent. The unprecedented discounts are a sign of continuing unease in the high street retail industry, as the threat from online shopping looms ever larger. Internet sales hit a record high this year, with predicted total sales of about £130 billion, while high street retailers had the weakest sales growth in more than a year in the first two weeks of December – a critical period in the build-up to Christmas.

A report published this month by Deloitte cited figures showing that the number of shoppers who visited high street stores in November fell by 2.9 per cent compared with the same month a year ago. The number of visitors to shopping and classified websites rose by 22.4 per cent.

Tarlok Teji, head of retail at Deloitte, said: “The number of people shopping online and the number of retailers with online stores are increasing quickly. Our research suggests that the relatively poor show on the high street is due to shifting channel choice rather than declines in spending.”

High street sales recovered only at the end of this month when it became too late to receive internet deliveries, and sellers, desperate to clear their shelves, introduced pre-Christmas discounts. French Connection, Hobbs, LK Bennett, Monsoon, New Look and H&M all put up early sale signs in their windows.

Kevin Hawkins, the director-general of the BRC, said: “Retailers who haven’t done the business they expected to before Christmas will be very keen to cut their losses and shift whatever seasonal stock they’ve been left with. With customers short on spare cash and nervous about how their finances will shape up in the new year, it’ll be a bumper January sales, with bargains to be had as stores compete to tempt customers in.”

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