The four-week summer discount season in France came to an end at sunset, which is particularly deserted compared to previous years.
The discount season is the golden period of consumption and shopping for the French people. It is divided into summer and winter. Since May 11, major French shopping malls have gradually opened for business, but the passenger flow has recovered slowly. Compared with previous years, the discount season in France this summer has been postponed by 3 weeks. Many merchants have stepped up their discounts, offering a 40% or even 50% discount in the first week, but the sales situation is not satisfactory.
According to the sharing of some French shopping agents on social media such as Xiaohongshu, luxury brands such as Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Gucci have launched discounts of different strengths for VIP consumers. The goods are more complete than in previous years, but the traffic in the store is still sluggish. The shopping street full of luxury cars is sparsely populated.
According to the latest data from the French Federation for the Promotion of Trade, the sales of offline merchants during the discount season this year hit a record low. The passenger flow of non-food retail businesses such as handbags and fashion in May and June dropped 40% and 35% year-on-year, respectively. The e-commerce sales of most retailers increased by 35% overall. According to a report released by the global market research organization eMarketer, the current overall performance of French e-commerce business is better than traditional retail, and online retail sales are expected to increase by 17.1% this year.
The results of a survey conducted by the Paris Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry on about 400 shops in Paris showed that 79% of the surveyed businesses were "very disappointed" with the results of the promotion, and 87% of the businesses said that their turnover had declined compared with last year. However, Didier Kling, chairman of the Paris Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry, emphasized that while offline sales are cold, consumers have gradually developed the habit of e-commerce shopping, and many brands have introduced or improved online shopping services.
The analysis of the French newspaper Le Figaro also pointed out that the epidemic caused French businesses to close for nearly two months, which had a serious impact on cash flow and accelerated the adjustment and reorganization of the brand to a certain extent. Facing consumers who are more and more enthusiastic about online shopping, many offline stores have begun to move to online, and even closed stores to save money.
Francis Palombi, chairman of the French Merchants Federation, believes that merchants realize the huge advantages of online sales and will further accelerate the pace of transformation and innovation. This is not only conducive to driving consumption, but also promoting the development of logistics, digital payment and other fields, and injecting impetus into the recovery of the French economy. Thanks to online and offline sales models and a variety of product choices, Fnac Darty added 190,000 online customers during the discount season, and online sales have grown significantly compared to the same period last year.
However, some analysts said that the main reason for the downturn in the summer discount season in France is the sharp decrease in tourists. Although local French consumers have experienced temporary "retaliatory consumption" since the unblocking in May, it cannot compensate for the blows that merchants have suffered due to the lack of groups such as the most consuming Chinese tourists. It is important to know that the summer discount season in France coincides with the summer vacation in China, and the sunshine hours are long. Many parents will take their children to Europe for sightseeing during the vacation, and at the same time buy relatively cost-effective luxury goods. It is recognized by Chinese tourists as the best overseas shopping. opportunity.
According to data from the Tourism Committee of the Greater Paris Region of Île-de-France, the number of tourists in the Greater Paris Region in 2019 was 50.3 million, a record high. Among them, China is the most important source of Asian tourists in the region. In 2019, the Greater Paris Region received 950,000 Chinese tourists. Visitors, total consumption ranks second, bringing about 1 billion euros in tourism income to the region. Even in 2018, which continued to fluctuate due to the "Yellow Vest Movement", 2.2 million Chinese tourists went to France with a total consumption of 4 billion euros.
Nicolas Houze, the CEO of Galeries Lafayette, which only resumed operations on May 30, said more frankly that the number of visitors to the store has fallen sharply due to the epidemic, and the enthusiasm of local consumers has also been severely affected, and the passenger flow has decreased by 20 compared to before the epidemic. %, it is estimated that the loss of the group due to the epidemic may be as high as 1 billion euros.
Coincidentally, the British Fashion Council previously stated that the impact of the epidemic on the fashion industry, or twice the size of the UK as a whole, will offset the high growth that the industry has achieved in the past decade. Analysis company Global Data predicts that the sales of clothing and footwear in the UK this year will decrease by 26.1% year-on-year, with a loss of approximately 14 billion pounds. Analyst Chloe Collins said that due to the extension of the British government's blockade period for at least three weeks, offline clothing and footwear sales are expected to shrink further in 2020, plummeting by 33.6%.
According to IMRG Capgemini's Online Retail Index (ORI) statistics, online clothing sales in the UK showed a positive growth for the first time since the ban in July, an increase of 0.6%, overall online sales increased by 28.3% year-on-year, and women's clothing sales increased by 16% in the first week. , Menswear sales rose 24%, the highest weekly increase since the ban, but consumers are still reluctant to shop in physical stores.
In contrast, the recovery situation in Italy, the European country that was originally the most severely affected by the epidemic, seems to have improved. Italian discount retailer McArthurglen Group Southern Europe and Canada Regional General Manager Joan Jove recently revealed that discount shopping villages such as Serravalle, Noventa di Piave, Castel Romano, Barberino and La Reggia have been reopened to consumers and have already achieved more The expected performance is that all shopping centers have achieved organic and sustained growth. The best performer is La Reggia Village in Campania, where visitors are mainly local consumers.
Milan Fashion Week has also decided to resume its regular schedule, which will be held from September 23rd to 28th for the 2021 Spring/Summer Collection Milan Fashion Week. More than half of the brands will return to the runway model for live display, including Fendi, Prada, Max Mara and Salvatore Ferragamo, and about 20 shows will be released in digital form. CNMI stated that it will limit the number of people present to watch to ensure social distancing measures and public safety.
In the United States, where the epidemic is most severe, luxury retail is still clouded with clouds, nearly a million retail employees have been laid off, and consumers' shopping scenes have shifted to online. According to Adobe data, U.S. e-commerce activity has surged by 25% recently compared to the beginning of March. Among them, luxury department stores such as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus have discounts up to 40% off. Sephora, a cosmetics retailer under LVMH, has extended its return policy for recent in-store purchases to stores. 30 days after reopening.
In sharp contrast to the above, China's duty-free retail industry is ushering in a period of burst. According to the new policy, not only has the tax-free shopping quota increased from 30,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan per person per year, but the types of outlying islands’ duty-free commodities have also increased from 38 to 45. According to CCTV news, since the implementation of the new duty-free shopping policy on outlying islands, Haikou Customs has supervised more than 280,000 outlying island shopping passengers, and the tax-free sales amounted to 2.219 billion yuan, and sales increased by 2.34 times over the same period last year. On July 1 alone, there were more than 20,000 purchases and sales close to 60 million yuan.
To be sure, the impact of the epidemic on global luxury retail in early 2020 is irreversible. Consumer confidence urgently needs to be boosted. Local consumption has limited benefits to the performance of luxury brands. In the face of a variable economic environment, consumers’ cash flow commitments Pressure, and the global tourism industry needs more time to recover.
The Chinese market, which began to recover earlier, is taking on more important growth tasks. Bain predicts that Chinese consumers will buy at most half of the world’s luxury goods by 2025. With the dividends of the Hainan Free Trade Port policy, tax-free business is more important for luxury brands. Yan may be a new big cake.
