Winter sales have been a cold shower. Open Wednesday, 10 January, the period of six weeks, during which the distributors can sell it at a loss to sell their unsold inventory was completed on Tuesday, February 20. And the balance sheet is negative, is estimated by the economic Observatory of the French Institute of fashion (IFM).
“For the first three weeks, distributors have registered a decline in activity of 4 % in value compared to the same period in 2017,” judge Thomas Delattre, responsible for the development of the IFM, recalling that last year the winter sale had already experienced the same mishap. This year, in spite of new markdowns practiced in store, nothing has helped revive activity on the last three weeks.
The end of the game is severe. Anything on January, “the activity was concluded on a decline of 5 % of sales, excluding online sales” compared with the same month of 2017, ” says Yohann Petiot, ceo of the Alliance of commerce, the confederation of traders of fashion and shoes.
“Department stores, popular shops, or specialized channels : all channels of distribution display of the sales figures in decline,” says Mr. Delattre. The specialty channels in the clothing, Shades and other Celio, recorded a revenue decrease of 2.9 %, according to the IFM.
This underperformance comes after a resurgence in activity by the end of 2017. Has the general surprise, the market had ended the year in growth. Certainly, it had reached only 0.6 %, but “the recovery had troubled all of the predictions,” observes Mr. Delattre. Since, only on the faith of this little hint, after ten consecutive years of decrease, all of the distributors of fashion had high hopes. They were sold out in January.
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