[K0SM0S]

I'm not an expert in accounting but I assume there's a legit way to write it off as some exceptional loss and offload it, maybe even to customers; what's however certain is that if you get audited by fiscal authorities, you better be able to prove it's not fraud. (and yes, it'll be subjective, ultimately a judge's ruling I guess)

But don't quote me on that part, it's been a long time since I've worked in retail (10 years). I just know that as a brand store (Esprit de Corp) we would simply send unsold items back to the mother ship and they'd deal with it. I think the maximum allowed sale discount is around 20% outside of the bi-yearly governement-decided national sales (called "les Soldes" in French, and a high time for shopping amateurs, mostly women historically).

This all feels so 19th century / communist, I'm appalled just sharing it. But it was true as of 2008.

But hey, we get e.g. Black Friday online like everyone else, and Amazon does their Prime Days too, so... dunno what's up with that. I just know street retail is dying big time here, more than in most comparable European cities in my anecdotal experience.