The department store markets across Europe are quite different in nature. Germany has been in decline and its leading player, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, which represents three quarters of the market, looks fragile in the face of COVID-19. Department stores in France were sustaining a growth trend but are suffering the impacts of the pandemic as well. In Spain El Corte Inglés represents the entire market and is currently facing the difficulties of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, whilst in Italy a significant spike in online demand is only intensifying pressures from Amazon and other better-equipped online rivals.

As we discuss individually for each country in this report, department stores are certain to experience a considerable decline in sales in the short-to-medium term. The partial or full closure of physical stores is creating the strongest impact but this will be amplified by the drop in demand during lockdown for the main categories they sell, such as clothing and beauty, as well as any reluctance among consumers to return to physical shopping when restrictions are eased.

We expect a substantial decline in in-store sales, particularly of non-food items and non-essential products, which should be only partially offset by an increase in online shopping. Given the state of play at the time of writing (27th May 2020), we think the combined mixed goods (including department stores) retail sales across Europe’s largest five economies will decline in the region of 20% in 2020.

• The impact of COVID-19 on consumer behaviour and the department store sector

• How the sector will fare in the post-COVID-19 slowdown

• The value of key department store product categories

• Leading department store performance in 2019.

This report series covers the department store sectors in the five leading Western European countries – the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The data in its entirety is contained in the single copy five-country report. Single country reports are also available.

Our exclusive consumer research spans all five countries. In each of these markets, we asked consumers:

• Which department stores they had bought anything from, either in-store or online in the last six months

• Attitudes to department stores, for example what they should offer, what they are valued for.

These questions were asked in all countries but the research for the UK looked at these issues in greater depth.

A department store is in theory a store trading from multiple floors and selling a wide range of merchandise. How many floors and how many different ranges is more difficult to specify, but in general they sell beauty products, some homewares (including electricals in some cases) and fashion. They are stores designed for customers to linger in and often include a café or restaurant.

There are two sources of information for the size of the department store sector.

Our preferred route is a bottom up analysis based on known sales of the leading players. The data for the largest department store groups in Europe is kept in Mintel’s own Retail Interactive database.

Most department stores are classified as “mixed goods retailers” (non-specialised stores with non-foods predominating) in the national industry statistics. As these statistics are available for almost all countries in Europe, this is a useful guide to how the department stores have performed. However, the definition includes many other retailers with a broad range that are definitely not department stores (such as Tati in France or Home Bargains in the UK).

Financial definitions used are:

• Sales: turnover as reported by the company, excluding VAT.

• Operating profits: the return made on trading. This is the profit after depreciation, but before finance charges, tax, amortisation and any exceptional items, such as property profits or impairment charges.

• Pre-tax profits: profit after all charges, including exceptional charges but before tax.

• Operating margin: operating profits as a percentage of sales.

• Pre-tax margin: pre-tax profits as a percentage of sales.