For yet another year, we bid farewell to an atypical Christmas season, accompanied by uncertainty and restrictions that have altered family celebrations and gatherings. The Three Kings will arrive decaffeinated, vaccinated, with masks, and without giving out sweets, but if there is one thing we can be sure of, it is that after their Majesties, the winter sales will arrive. So, what day do the sales start?

Since the state government liberalised the opening hours and discount periods ten years ago, shops no longer have to wait for a specific date to start the sales period. The winter sales in Catalonia officially start on 7 January and end on 31 March, but even so, many shops and chain shops already have discounts and offers, or will have them from 3 January onwards.

The appearance of the new Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has tempered optimism for the gradual recovery of a sector that has seen a significant decrease in activity in the high street during the hours leading up to Christmas Eve. But neither the restrictions, nor people’s caution in the face of the high level of accumulated incidence, nor the popularity of online shopping will mean the end of the sales phenomenon. We are changing our shopping habits and, for this reason, more and more neighbourhood shops are going digital to gain access to customers who now have their mobile phones closer than the corner shop, and which also allow us to make contactless payments in physical shops.

11Onze is becoming a phenomenon as the first Fintech community in Catalonia. Now, it releases the first version of El Canut, the super app of 11Onze, for Android and Apple. El Canut, the first universal account can be opened in Catalan territory.