A chasm opened in pre-Christmas sales among the high street retailers as Debenhams launched a £250m four-day sale, while rival store groups are holding back.
Debenhams' sale day, planned in advance, comes as Verdict forecast that Britons would spend about £500m less on Christmas this year.
This is the first time since its records began in 1989 that the retail research group has forecast festive retail spending will be lower year-on-year.
While Debenhams was trumpeting the sale days starting this Wednesday as the start of a Christmas price war, other retailers stood firm on their resolve that they would not resort to special sales in the run up to Christmas.
Marks and Spencer is expected to refrain from repeating the 20 per cent-off sale days it held in the run up to Christmas last year, as the economy lurched downwards.
Sir Stuart Rose, executive chairman of M&S, said two weeks ago that while the high street bellwether would offer promotions, he hoped to avoid the "blanket" sale days of last year, which he described as "exceptional action for exceptional times".
House of Fraser, the privately owned department store group, is also hoping to stick with full-priced sales in the run-up to Christmas. Sir Philip Green's BHS chain has not yet decided whether it will hold any special sales days.
Andrew Hughes, analyst at UBS, said the high street was looking "a bit more promotional than a couple of months ago", but he still expected discounting to be "down year-on-year, particularly for the apparel retailers, because of the way they have budgeted for autumn/winter".
The polarisation of retailer strategies comes as Verdict expects non-food sales to fall by £1.3bn in the final three months of this year - or more than double the £600m decline in the final three months of last year - dragged down by a £1bn fall in housing-related purchases.
The decline in non-food expenditure would be partially offset by a £723m increase in food and grocery spending.
Maureen Hinton, lead analyst at Verdict, said non-food sales would suffer from the 2.5 per cent cut in the VAT rate last year, which means retailers must sell more items of clothing or homewares to maintain sales, or increase their prices.
Meanwhile, store groups had not captured all of the custom from a series of chain failures, while consumers were being more careful with their spending.
However, even the depressed non-food retailers' sales would appear comparatively better against last year's very weak figures.
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