We cover the top five economies in detail in the individual country chapters of this report Clothing Retailing – Europe and in the Executive Summary – Market chapter we also provide data on another 21 European economies. More details of retailing in these smaller markets plus Russia and Turkey can be found in Mintel’s European Retail Handbook – September 2015. Single country reports on Clothing Retailing are also available for the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Clothing specialists are the focus of our report, because this is the most dominant channel in the market. Nevertheless, for each country, non-specialist retailers are also covered in sections such as company profiles, channels of distribution, and our consumer research. Carrefour, El Corte Inglés, Otto Group, Tesco, Asda, John Lewis and Debenhams are among the non-specialist profiles included. Additionally, we provide consumer spending data for each country, which includes spending through specialist and non-specialist channels.

Mintel commissioned consumer research in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain and in each country we asked 2,000 internet users aged 16 (2,001 in Spain) about their:

• Attitudes to clothing size and fit

• Interest in sizing and fitting services

• Reasons for returning items bought online.

Additionally, the UK report includes further consumer research, which asked shoppers about: what fashion items they buy, where they shop for clothes, and levels of satisfaction with clothing retailers.

Responses to these surveys reflect the opinion of internet users. While internet usage is high in the UK, France and Germany, it is less so in Spain and Italy. Eurostat records the following household penetration levels for broadband internet in 2014: UK 88%, Germany 87%, France 77%, Spain 73% and Italy 71%.

Where internet usage is lower, the online population is less representative of the general population. Although Spain and Italy are catching up, this still means that, for example, the proportion of respondents buying online may not so clearly reflect the proportion buying online among the total population.

Note that for some survey results we provide netted totals of answers to two or more options. A netted total will often equal less than the sum of the parts being netted, due to overlaps in respondents selecting different options.

In our data on sector sales and forecasts and in our coverage of leading retailers within each market, this report concentrates on clothing specialists, as defined below and used by national statistics offices across Europe. Examples of specialists are Grupo Inditex, H&M and Next.

The definition of clothing specialists in European countries is that used for the NACE category 47.71: Retail sale of clothing in specialised stores, including fur and accessories such as ties, braces, gloves etc.

Non-specialist retailers include:

• Department/variety stores

• Discount stores

• Food retailers

• Sports goods specialists

• Market stalls and bazaars

• Second-hand/charity shops

• Catalogue operators

• Online-only operators.

In the UK and Spain we include M&S and Dunnes Stores within our definition of clothing specialists: despite both offering a wide array of other products including food and homewares, the scale of their clothing operations in each country is such that we have felt it necessary to include both as clothing specialists.

We use the following COICOP (Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose) categories for consumer spending data.

Footwear spending is also provided for most countries, but this is not a focus of this report.

All retailers’ sales figures are quoted excluding VAT (sales tax), unless specifically stated otherwise.

In our European reports, all retail sector sales are quoted excluding VAT, unless specifically stated otherwise. In our UK report, retail sales data includes VAT.

Consumer spending data is quoted including VAT, unless specifically stated otherwise.

Operating profit is trading profit after normal operating costs and depreciation, but before interest, goodwill amortisation and exceptional items.

Pre-tax profit is calculated after all costs, including exceptional items, interest, and non-cash charges such as amortisation, but before tax.

Note that there can be a number of reasons why tables do not sum exactly:

• Rounding errors

• Currency conversions if original data for different subsidiaries was in different currencies (companies often provide information in local currencies)

• VAT (sales tax) – if original data was provided gross (including sales tax), we have extracted VAT at the relevant rates for countries concerned and at the estimated appropriate rates depending on product categories sold

• Information on all subsidiaries is not always available. As a result in some cases we have an entry for the parent company, and subsidiary information on only one part of the business.

Conversion from local currencies to euros is carried out at the average rate ruling during the year.

Rates against the euro for eurozone countries have now been fixed since 1999 and all accounts in eurozone countries are now published in euros.