The Spanish clothing market contracted in both 2018 and 2019, when it was valued at €25.35 billion. The economy has been the hardest hit of all the Eurozone countries, and we anticipate a further contraction in the clothing market of around 18% for the whole of 2020, resulting in a market size that is €3 billion smaller than in 2015.
Clothing retailers have seen their sales decline over 2020 as a result of store closures, decreased discretionary spending, and fewer reasons to shop for clothes. Even prior to the pandemic their share of the whole retail sector had been declining as they face competition from online pureplayers, such as Amazon and Zalando, the flash sales operators, such as Veepee, and the marketplaces on eBay and AliExpress. Sports retailers also represent a significant channel, and these are well positioned to take advantage of trends in the clothing sector arising from the increased amount of working from home and restrictions on socialising.
Online is developing rapidly and all of the major retailers have well developed digital operations. The market leader, in-store and online is Inditex, which has seven different formats, straddling most sectors of the market in terms of ages and gender. The company’s agile business model has helped it to bounce back quite strongly after the initial impact of COVID-19-related closures. Department store chain El Corte Inglés, the country’s largest retailer, is a big player in fashion. It has been expanding its partnerships at home and abroad with other retailers, including AliExpress from China, which has Spain as its largest European market.
Key issues covered in this Report
The impact of COVID-19 on the clothing retail sector
How behaviours of clothes shoppers have changed since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak
The main channels used to purchase clothes and how this is evolving
How specialists are performing compared to non-specialists
The role of online and the emergence of online-only specialists.
Areas covered in this Report
This report covers the clothing retail market in Spain, with a focus on clothing and fashion specialist retailers. The report does not cover non-specialists, such as hypermarkets, in detail although these are covered briefly in the consumer research section.
The Report combines analysis of the market in Spain, including market sizes, specialists’ sales and forecasts, along with our in-depth consumer data, which analyses shoppers’ behaviour. A number of relevant company profiles are also included.
For our consumer research this year we asked questions on the following topics:
Participation in online and in-store shopping for clothing in the last 12 months
The retailers used for clothing shopping in the last 12 months.
Responses to a series of attitudinal and behavioural statements relating to shopping for clothing in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.
For the purpose of this report, Mintel has used the following definitions:
Consumer spending: The total amount spent by Spanish households (including sales tax) on clothing, via all channels, i.e. clothing shops, hypermarkets, online, at markets etc.
Retail sales: total sales of all types of goods and services (excluding sales tax) via stores and directly to the consumer (mainly online) by specialist clothing retailers. It includes online sales of these retailers where the majority of sales are in bricks and mortar outlets.
