Cut-Price Christmas Three-for-Two Offers, Early One-Day Sales, Special Discounts .... Major Stores Are Battling Hard to Bolster Festive Sales. But Do We Really Need a Miracle On the High Street to Prevent a Retail Slump?

Summary

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Shops he heads is one of the few retailers to still have the must- have gift of the year on the shelves - the farting, belching, kung- fu fighting RoboSapien.

"We had the foresight to take half of the UK stock coming in, " the Scottish millionaire crows. "The rest of the industry is stocking out, but we should have the RoboSapien until three or four days before Christmas."

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Cut-Price Christmas Three-for-Two Offers, Early One-Day Sales, Special Discounts .... Major Stores Are Battling Hard to Bolster Festive Sales. But Do We Really Need a Miracle On the High Street to Prevent a Retail Slump?

The 15-inch tall robot, designed by an exNasa scientist, is tipped to join the iPod and flatscreen televisions on the bestseller list this Christmas and could prove an extremely financially rewarding business decision for the Gadget Shop.

Yet despite this major coup, the 68-store chain has joined the majority of high-street traders offering discounted goods and threefor-two type promotions in the past few weeks.

A flurry of "flash" one-day sales or promotions by household names such as Marks & Spencer, House of Fraser, WH Smith, PC World and Woolworths at the retail industry's traditionally busiest time of th...

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