Thursday October 21, 2021
Up to 40 percent fewer goods
Fashion retail complains about delivery bottlenecks
Just before the important Christmas business, textile, shoe and leather goods stores run out of goods. Almost all companies wait in vain for certain items, according to a survey. The bottlenecks hit the low-price range particularly hard, for which production is primarily carried out in the Far East.
Almost all textile, shoe and leather goods stores in Germany are currently struggling with delivery bottlenecks. “A quarter of textile, shoe and leather goods retailers are currently even missing 20 to 40 percent of autumn and winter goods,” said the spokesman for the Textile Trade Association (BTE), Axel Augustin, summarizing the result of an industry survey. It hits the low-price range particularly hard, for which products are mainly produced in the Far East.
According to a joint survey by the textile, shoe and leather goods trade associations, only five percent of the companies did not register any failures or delays in autumn and winter goods. Around 30 percent of the participants reported failures and delays of up to 10 percent, and a further 40 percent even up to 20 percent of the goods that were mostly ordered months ago from suppliers.
This leads to a sometimes painful loss of sales in numerous businesses. “More than a quarter of the companies even recorded double-digit losses,” said Augustin. Almost half report sales declines of up to ten percent. Only a quarter of retailers do not feel any losses because customers switched to other products.
Prices still stable
In contrast, according to the BTE, the price increases observed in many other sectors are currently within reasonable limits in the textile, shoe and leather goods trade. In more than half of the companies there were no or hardly any significant increases in sales prices for the current autumn and winter goods, with another 40 percent of the survey participants there were price increases for 10 to 30 percent of the ranges and collections currently on offer. Not even every tenth textile, shoe and leather goods retailer has increased their prices for more than 30 percent of the current autumn and winter goods.
“Most of the goods currently on offer were already ordered in spring 2021, so that the current price increases in the global procurement market have little or no effect,” says Augustin, explaining the development. Despite the current delivery problems, there will also be a good selection in the upcoming Christmas shopping, he emphasized.