No big catch-up run in retail so far
SABU Schuh & Marketing GmbH surveyed its retailers over the weekend about their sales development since the stores reopened. Around 120 dealers from all over Germany took part in the quick survey, with companies from Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony making up around 80% of the survey participants. Around 47% of the participants operate their business in places with up to 10.000 inhabitants, a further 45% in communities between 10 and 50.000 inhabitants and 8% in cities with 50.000 inhabitants or more. Sales areas with less than 100 square meters were represented by 15%, 100 to 300 square meters with 61%, 300 to 500 square meters with 15% and 9% of the companies surveyed had sales areas between 500 and 800 square meters available. All shops that took part in the survey between April 20.04th. and April 27.04th. reopened.
Total sales in the first days after reopening were below or significantly below the previous year for 51% of the SABU affiliates surveyed, at the previous year's level for 13% and only 36% of the companies were able to report sales above the previous year. The children's shoes business performed best on average; overall it was only slightly below the previous year. Women's shoes are lagging behind significantly and sales of men's shoes have collapsed catastrophically. In this division, SABU dealers estimate the sales expectations for the full year 2020 to be 95% significantly lower than the previous year's sales.
The Heilbronn-based group also asked about future sales expectations based on the first days of sales. The SABU affiliates surveyed stated that they expect accumulated sales for the first half of 2020 to be around 35% below that of the first half of 2019. A decline of around 2020% is expected for 25 as a whole.
SABU managing director Stephan Krug: “Our survey shows a representative picture, especially among smaller shoe retail companies and companies in small to medium-sized towns. Unfortunately, we are currently finding that due to the rather poor consumer climate, the hoped-for catch-up purchases in the shoe trade have largely failed to materialize. Due to the “shut down” period, important sales were irretrievably lost. The sometimes dramatic decline in sales will further accelerate the structural change in the shoe trade. The conclusion that these sales have shifted to online providers is only partially true." Krug continues: "Now it should actually be the time for local stationary retailers to take advantage of the situation and with clearly visible advertising on all channels The motto is 'We are back for you. With us you can take your dream shoe with you straight away and be present. Nevertheless, it will be a long road to a certain normalization of sales, which will accompany us into 2021.”
