As the summer sales come to an end retailers are reporting substantial increases in sales compared to last year, with foreign visitors making a particularly strong contribution to the figures.

While the summer weather has been a disappointment, retailers have said that it has benefitted them as people have found more time for shopping.

This, combined with the huge increase in shoppers from Britain and Northern Ireland taking advantage of the strength of sterling, has helped to make this year's sales a big success.

"One of the most noticeable trends is that people from Northern Ireland and Britain are doing a lot of shopping in Ireland at the moment and who could blame them with sterling so strong," says Mr Paul Kelly, the managing director of Brown Thomas, which now has a store in Cork city.

Mr Ronan Faherty, the general manager of the Dublin store says because of sterling's strength, shoppers from Northern Ireland are getting large mark downs on products.

"If an item of clothing is being marked down 20 per cent and you consider that sterling is 20 per cent more valuable than the punt, then that person is getting 40 per cent off the price of the product in total," he points out.

Northern shoppers are not just buying certain items, but are making purchases right across the board, according to Mr Faherty.

"Things like homeware would normally just be bought by domestic shoppers, but overseas visitors are making those kind of purchases too".

The general manager of Clerys, Mr Tom Rea, estimates that this year's summer sale is up by between 5 and 7 per cent when compared with last year. There "have been a lot of people around", Mr Faherty says, although the store lost significant revenue during the weekend of the Tour de France.

"Ladies clothing is particularly good this year, with many of the best bargains snapped up very early in the sale period," he says. He agrees that the influx of overseas shoppers was also a major factor.

"Unlike previous years overseas visitors are not just coming to buy the standard tourist products, but are buying items they might normally buy at home," he says. Not surprisingly, outdoor, leisure and gardening products have not been selling particularly well during the sale, says Mr Rea. "Put it this way, our umbrella section has been incredibly busy over the last few weeks," he says.

One trend he has noticed in this and recent summer sales is that items which might not normally be associated with sales are doing exceptionally well.

"Jewellery, for example, and crystal products are jumping off the shelves at the moment," he says. He mentions specifically the John Rocha collection of Waterford Crystal glassware.

Mr Rea says that, while the store wants to clear all its summer stock, some holiday wear, like t-shirts and shorts will be retained for people going on holiday during August and early September.

At Arnotts, Mr Eddie Shanahan says its summer sale has gathered momentum as it has gone on. It finished yesterday and Mr Shanahan says fashion items and both men's and women's footwear have been the most buoyant areas. He says the sale has been across the board, with not just certain items marked down.

He says the cost of some designer labels means that many people wait until the summer sales to buy them. "Some people are just fed up with paying for Donna Karan's dinners," he says.

The store's new Impulse shop, which sells fashion labels for younger female shoppers, has many of its items marked down by 50 per cent, he says. Sportswear, benefitting from a post-World Cup high, has also being moving off the shelves very quickly, he adds.

Whatever stock has not been sold at this stage will be offered at a special knock-down sale to take place in a weeks time, when the real hardened bargain hunters will be in evidence.

Mr Kelly says all stock at Brown Thomas will have to go as many of the fashionable items will be practically worthless within a few months. "A lot of our autumn stock has already arrived and is ready to into the stores," he says.