Clothing company Gerry Weber wants to rejuvenate its collections and make them more appealing to younger women. This can already be seen in the spring/summer 2023 collections in the Düsseldorf showroom.
In addition to new materials, there is also a lot of color in the collections – strong red and pink tones greeted visitors right at the entrance. Fully digital ordering is being tested for the first time for the Samoon plus-size line. So there is a lot going on at Gerry Weber. How is business going at the moment and what are the expectations for SS23? Managing Director Angelika Schindler-Obenhaus spoke about this in an interview on Sunday.
1. How do you currently experience the consumer mood? Gerry Weber operates both its own shops, e-commerce and wholesale.
Angelika Schindler-Obenhaus: You can already tell that the end consumers are a bit unsettled. The dealers also ask how we assess the autumn/winter when we are about to place the order. Everyone is a bit afraid of autumn/winter, which is reinforced by the media coverage. Nevertheless, optimism prevails when you end up talking to everyone. We don’t have a crystal ball.
2. And how are things going in your own retail business?
In retail, on the one hand, we see a lot of catching up to do among customers – when it comes to occasions, they want to dress nicely again. On the other hand, we see a slight reluctance to buy among some customers.
When the war in Ukraine began, we noticed in our own e-commerce – like everyone else – that the numbers weren’t just going up. This also suggests that consumers are unsettled by such events. That went away after a while.
3. What’s selling well right now?
occasion, and the suit comes back. Clothes are a huge topic. This time of hoodies and sweats is over. We still have them, but don’t sell them much. It’s more in the direction of suiting, dresses – beautiful things. But always in such a way that I can wear them festively with a high heel or with a sneaker in everyday life.
4. What colors are doing well?
Neutral shades, like sand and black, but also strong red. (points to the collection of the main Gerry Weber line in the showroom) Yellow works great with Taifun, but also black and off-white. Customers buy both color and non-color. Color also stands for joie de vivre, for lightness – I think we will need that.
5. Going back to the decline in online business, how do you think things are going from here?
We think it was a slight dent. Overall e-commerce growth will slow, but it will continue to grow. In the future, customers will remain hybrid, buying both in-store and online. But overall, the online business still has great potential. Experts predict 50 percent online sales by 2030.
6. What are your expectations for the SS23 order round compared to last year?
We are currently selling the January, February and March delivery dates and believe that it will be a really good order. At least that’s what the evidence so far suggests.
7. Are you growing in the German-speaking area or more internationally?
I believe that Germany is catching up again, but we are still growing more internationally. We’re in 70 countries. We have customers here from Chile, Canada and Australia, who all came back for the first time after two years, it gives you goosebumps.
There are few German fashion companies that are so internationally positioned. That’s why I’m sometimes proud that we’ve managed to establish ourselves internationally. There was a customer from Kuwait this morning who said we were her strongest brand.
8. Gerry Weber was also active in Russia and Ukraine. How do you deal with business in the countries today?
We weighed it up very carefully. We have 18 partner stores in Ukraine. On Friday we also had a Ukrainian partner visiting us. She had a store in Kharkiv, she lost everything and is going from Kharkiv to Kyiv to open a new store. That’s insane, I admire people, what strength they have. We support them there too.
We continue to deliver to Russia. We do not have our own retail stores, only franchise and partner stores. We looked at all the ownership structures there and they are all medium-sized families, some of whom we have been working with for 20 or 25 years. We continue to supply them – as of today.
That was a decision that we discussed on the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board, and it wasn’t easy for us. We have to refinance ourselves next year and Russia, with a 6 percent share of sales, is actually too big for us to simply give it up out of responsibility towards all employees.
9. In view of the ongoing supply chain problems, are you planning to produce closer to Europe again?
Closer to Europe, is also in Turkey, where we also have an office. But Turkey is totally “overloaded” right now, because of course everyone is trying to come back to Turkey. We are also finding that we can do something again in Eastern Europe because the countries here are very good at ready-made clothing. Tunisia is also one of the countries where we are trying to build something. Not every country can do everything either, so we have to ensure that we spread the risks a little more widely.