As in the whole of Europe, the Austrian clothing retail sector is slowly recovering from the losses caused by the pandemic and rose by five percent in 2021 compared to the previous year to around 4.3 billion euros (gross). This was determined by the market research company RegioData Research based in Vienna and Munich.
H&M is the market leader
Hennes & Mauritz remains the market leader with its sub-labels by a wide margin and was able to increase its sales by 13.7 percent compared to the previous year. A similar increase was also achieved by Peek&Cloppenburg, which is now the second-biggest market player, having been in third place two years earlier. C&A slipped from second to third place. Although C&A was able to maintain its sales from the crisis year to the following year, it has recorded a subtle but constant drop in sales since 2016. The biggest jump can be observed in 2020 with a minus of around 27 percent.
Online share in 2021 at 38 percent
With a sales increase of 11.3 percent, the Inditex Group was able to generate above-average growth. Austrian retailer Kastner & Öhler has also held up well over the years, ranking fifth among market participants along with Infected, closely followed by Kik. With an increase of almost eight percent, the currently sixth-placed discounter is approaching the top five again. Stationary retail remains under pressure as more and more is being bought online. The online share, based on the consumer spending of private households in Austria, was already 38 percent in 2021. This includes sales from domestic and foreign online shops of pure players and multi-channel sales from stationary retailers.
Online share in Europe: Austria in fourth place
Internationally too, the long-term triumph of online trading cannot be stopped. While online shares of up to 40 percent of the total retail volume are already being achieved in some Asian countries, the online share in Europe currently varies between five and 27 percent. Great Britain, with high purchasing power and low retail space density, has by far the highest online share in Europe at 27 percent. With a share of 16.2 percent, Austria is in the top third and ranks fourth in Europe after Great Britain, Germany and Denmark.
Specialists are catching up
However, the major growth in online retail is mainly in favor of the big pure players, Amazon, Universal and Zalando. All-rounders such as Amazon, Zalando and the Otto Group have increased sales overall, but at the same time their market shares in the individual segments are stagnating. In addition, a large number of specialists are currently gaining in importance and are nibbling on the turnover of the all-rounders. The following online shops made it into the top ten for Austrian consumers (see graphic).
