With the close of Christmas and the end of a peak period for shopping, the traditional January sales begin causing chaos across the country as people try to grab a bargain. Where different shoppers are trying to get their hands on the same bargain, some have been willing to get rough so that they are the person that goes home with it! Whatever happened to the season of goodwill?

Who’s to blame? Well you could go all the way back to the first ever January sale which was in 1894 at Harrods. Thing is, this was not like the sales of today. If you watched any TV on Christmas day, you would have seen advert after advert advertising a sale here, a sale there. Newspapers, radio, magazines, e-mails, websites, TV, basically companies have it covered from all angles now. The only way you can not know about a sale is if you lock yourself away in a cold, dark, sound proof room for 4 months!

Everyone knows, and hey, none of us can resist a bargain! This is why at the stroke of midnight at new year most of us can’t remember the words to Auld Lang Syne because all we can think of is that the sales have started!