What you need to know
2014/15 was the year when El Corte Inglés, the only department store chain operating in Spain, managed to reverse the fall in sales it had been suffering since 2008. The increase was a convincing one too with group turnover up 2.6% to €14.59 billion, greater than the average across all Spanish retail sales, and the department store division sales were up 3.6%. The group expects the positive economic climate in the country to help it sustain this sales uplift going forwards.
Given El Corte Inglés position as the only department store chain operating in Spain the results from our consumer research are not surprising: 60% of our online survey respondents said they had visited El Corte Inglés in the previous six months and, of those that had visited a department store in the previous six months 88% said El Corte Inglés was their most regular destination.
Areas covered in this report
There is no hard and fast definition for a department store. But, we would expect stores to typically trade from a minimum of 1,000 sq m and stock at least half a dozen different broad product categories, with one category unlikely to account for more than two thirds of turnover, and usually significantly less than this.
As a minimum, all department stores covered in this report sell adult and children’s apparel, lingerie, fashion accessories, footwear, beauty products and some homewares. Larger full-line stores have a much wider product assortment.
Some department stores have food halls, and these are typically upscale and geared towards fine foods and delicatessen, and so are differentiated from the everyday supermarket.
The offer usually covers a mix of concessions and own-bought ranges, increasingly with a private label element within the own-bought assortment.
National statistics offices do not collate data on a department store sector. Around Europe, department stores are typically included within the broader Mixed Goods Retailers sector.
This is something of a catch-all sector covering not only large-space department stores, but variety stores, non-food discount stores and a whole host of other retailers that do not specialise in any one particular non-food product category.
