The Röther Group discontinues its e-commerce activities. The group of companies, which also includes the recently founded subsidiary R.Brand Group GmbH, has not been able to make online sales profitable and has now decided to close the Modepark Röthers web shop.
In the course of this, the web shops of the brands Baldessarini, Otto Kern, Pierre Cardin and Pioneer Jeans, which were taken over by the clothing group Ahlers AG, were also taken offline, the Röther Group confirmed at the request of FashionUnited. The specialist magazine Textilwirtschaft had previously reported on it. The online shops of the acquired brands are high in deficit.
Online shop was never profitable
The end of the fashion park’s web shop, which opened in 2016, does not come as a complete surprise, as it has never been profitable. In addition, “the high costs in E-Com have eaten up the gross profits,” said Managing Director Michael Röther to the textile industry. Process, personnel and postage costs were underestimated and so in the end it was above all the high logistics and returns costs that hit the group. However, the managing director emphasized that the return rate should have been around the usual 40 to 45 percent.
High losses due to the closure of the online shop are probably not expected, because the area only contributed two percent to the total revenue. For customers who have previously shopped in the 47 Modepark Röthers branches in Germany and Austria, little will change either, because picking up online orders in the store or a click & collect program customary in retail was not offered anyway. The previously intended further development of the online shop and a possible app are no longer an issue with the closure, as a spokeswoman for the company confirmed.
All of the ten to twelve employees in the e-commerce area received an offer of continued employment. Which “almost everyone” is said to have accepted.