Shoppers take advantage of yesterday’s one-day-only 20% off sale at Marks & Spencer. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0674316)

HIGH STREET shops are following UK retailers and slashing their prices before Christmas.

For one day only, Marks & Spencer yesterday offered customers 20% off bottled wines and textiles.

Arcadia-owned Dorothy Perkins offered a two-day 20% reduction but Burton has yet to present a similar deal, although it is part of the same group.

‘We do the same offers as the UK, so, if they do it, we will,’ said Burton’s deputy manager Matt Flood. ‘We aren’t doing a sale at the moment but things can change on a week-to-week basis. It’s so quick.’

Retailers are trying to tempt shoppers in a bid to buck the slight downturn in high street sales. The Marks & Spencer 20%-off sale is its biggest one-day event in the British Isles for four years.

Debenham’s & BHS are following suit.

Many are attributing the fall in sales to the economic downturn.