-By Ankita Dutta.
The Spanish fashion market has continued to increase its share of online sales, positioning itself as the third largest European market in e-commerce penetration, just behind Germany and the United Kingdom. This trend has shown a significant change in Spain’s market, which ranked last among the five leading markets for fashion in the region, in terms of the share of online sales. According to a report on online fashion in Spain in 2023, sponsored by Modes in association with Kantar and sponsored by Lectra, Italy has dropped to fourth place being overtaken by Spain this year. Italy’s online market share fell four-tenths over the previous year but rose by 19%, while in 2022, the online share in Italy fell
again to 16.5%.
In contrast, France experienced a decline in the share of online sales for the second consecutive year, down to 20.2%. This decline was not as significant as the previous year, but enough for Spain to capture the third spot as the largest online fashion market in Europe.
The United Kingdom and Germany are the two biggest online markets with a long-standing tradition in online selling, with the latest update showing the UK’s market share dropping from 48.2% to 41% in 2022. Unfortunately, Germany does have data referencing the 2022 fiscal year, but in 2021, it indicated an increase in the share of sales through the online channel to 38.9% compared to 33% the previous year.
Although there has been a slight increase in the weight of online sales in the fashion business in Spain, the market share in volume has significantly risen in 2022 In Spain, fashion acquisitions constituted 16.9% of the overall garment transactions documented within the span of a year. Sales that occurred through electronic commerce translated to a growth of 1.4 points over last year, a new all-time high.
However, one piece of information that seems to be sneaking up is billing. The CNMC’s records for the first three quarters of 2022 reveal a clear indication of online fashion sales in Spain reaching 4,287 million euros. However, this value is slightly more than the 4,246 million euros noted for the corresponding period in 2021, with an increase of merely 1%. As a result, fashion has displayed diminished momentum via e-commerce in Spain. By the third quarter of 2022, registered fashion sales in the country reached only 8.1% of the total turnover, a decrease of 2.3% compared to the same period last year.
Although the share of e-commerce sales in Spain’s fashion market has increased, there is still room for development compared to the United Kingdom and Germany’s markets. The fashion world has seen a massive transition towards online channels of sales over the past few years. As such, businesses must adapt to remain competitive in the current market, especially given the pandemic’s severity, which has increased the demand for online shopping across the world.
