What awaits the retail in 2016 year

Holidays with active sales ended, demand, salaries again fell together with the ruble - what's next? The Moscow Tsvetnoy department store has already announced that it is halting purchases of European fashion-brands of clothes and shoes.
According to the forecast of the Union of Russian Buyers, in the 2016 year in Russia, about a third of multi-brand stores may close.

“There is a real gap in the cache flow,” explains Petr Kazarin, director of the Russian Buyers Union. - The purchase today takes place in euros, and the revenue of past seasons occurred in rubles. There is simply not enough cash flow to buy a new collection. Failure to fully purchase the collection leads to the closure of the store, a partial refusal leads to the sorting of the old product along with the new one. With a drop in overall purchasing power - of the order of 15-20% - the decline in the assortment will lead to a further decline, ”the expert said.

Only those companies that managed to optimize their business by reviewing rental rates, personnel policies and marketing will stay afloat. The retail market expects a large-scale redistribution, said Ivan Fedyakov, director general of Infoline, an information-analytical agency. “We will see the process of market consolidation, new major leaders who will control tens of percent of the market,” Fedyakov said.

Experts believe that a decline in purchasing power will force retailers to restrain price increases. Despite the new leaps in currencies, the increase in the cost of clothes and shoes will not exceed 10%, but at the same time, sales in 2016 may disappear altogether, say the Union of Russian Buyers.

According to Anna Lebsak-Kleimans, CEO of Fashion Consulting Group, in 2016, the prices for premium goods will grow the most. “A number of luxury brands have already announced that at the end of the discount season there will be a rise in price. Premium products are aimed at wealthy consumers who are much less sensitive to higher prices than people with low and middle incomes, ”AnnaLebsak-Kleimans shared.

Nevertheless, the Union of Russian Buyers expects that the premium segment of the clothing and footwear market this year may sink by 20-25%. According to the survey, the consumer model in this segment has changed: now in expensive stores, Russians are trying to make no more than one purchase. And the decision of Tsvetnoy to release the fourth floor from premium brands confirms this.