TFR | Strategy Consulting

I recently wrote a post published in Fibre2Fashion with the following title “2021: Fashion Retail Diagnosis and Action Plan“. This is a brief overview of it:

2020 is probably the worst year ever for many people: Covid-19, social movements, terrorism, populism, hurricanes, wildfires… You may have lost a close friend or a family member, have lost your job or closed your business while fundamental freedoms were limited. This is a different crisis and socioeconomic consequences are still uncertain. Covid-19 can’t be compared to the flu pandemic of 1918 or WW2. It has changed our world: the way we work, socialize, learn, shop, dress…

2020 is the year of retail purgatory. Some will survive, others don’t. In my opinion, this is not about what business strategy to implement but “how” to run a business in a new era. A new way of facing existing and coming challenges. Vaccines give us light at the end of the tunnel and retailers will have to adapt to a new ecosystem.

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Retailers keep shutting large amount of stores. A record 9,500 stores went out of business in 2019 in the US, which seemed massive — but as many as 25,000 could shut down permanently in 2020, mostly in malls, says an estimate from Coresight Research. Store closure will hit the US hardest as there are 8.5 billion square feet of retail space, which equates to 24.5 square feet of retail space per capita, or five times Europe’s average of 4.5 square feet per capita, according to Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

• Most fashion retailers are expected to recover in 2022-23.
• 55 per cent of Gen Z consumers say they will shop more frequently at retailers or brands that align with their core values in 2021.
• Only consumers in China, where lockdown measures were eased before the rest of the world, seem more inclined to increase their spending on discretionary goods, particularly apparel and clothing (26 per cent)
• …

Read more about Adidas, H&M or Inditex sales forecast, the economic and industry outlook and post-covid action plan based on research from McKinsey, Bain, IMF, Equity Research… here.