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bne October 2018 Southeast Europe I 45
Mangalia where, she says, “we used to buy clothes from little shops or even bazaars.” Shopping used to be “like going on a treasure hunt ... because good priced gems are hard to find.”
Zara arrived in Bucharest in 2004, three years before Romania joined the EU and when foreign travel was still an unaf- fordable luxury for many Romanians.
“I remember that the first thing I bought from Zara was in 2006 (it was a dress and I still have it) ... I had no idea who Zara was – in the whole of Bucharest there was only one Zara shop open. I was very pleased with my purchase, so
I became a regular client,” says Marin.
Maria was also enthusiastic when she discovered Zara and Koton for the first time after moving to Bucharest. “The impact? I, for one, find it easier to go to the mall and shop from the big brands than go walkabout in the city from one little store to another in search of clothes to buy. Maybe because I think the clothes at the mall are of better quality and more modern.”
In Kazakhstan, Zara’s arrival in 2009 was hotly anticipated by fashion con- scious women in the country’s com- mercial capital Almaty, and reportedly set a record for the largest opening day turnover for any Zara store. Before it and other international chains arrived, there were few options between the cheap, low-quality goods in the bazaars and the tiny expensive boutiques often owned by wives and girlfriends of rich businessmen. Almaty residents would regularly drop in to see the constantly changing stock at Zara, and the Span-
Top 5 CEE/Eurasia markets
ish chain became a staple of the Kazakh working woman’s wardrobe. Zara and Inditex’s other brands did so well in Kazakhstan that two years later Inditex bought out franchisee Fawaz Alhokair which had brought them to the Central Asian country.
But in other countries, shoppers were slower to embrace fast fashion. “Serbs love fashion and big brands and that’s why Turkish and Chinese goods will never be out,” says bne IntelliNews’ cor- respondent in Belgrade. While she says brands like H&M and Zara are “pretty popular”, most people “would still rather go to Turkish and Chinese stores which sell fake Gucci, LV, DG, Michael Kors [and] adored and beloved Burberry.” What these goods have in common is that the “brand is very visible and that’s what Serbs adore!”
She notes a change of mentality among the younger generation who would rather shop at, for example, H&M or LC Waikiki than for designer knockoffs. On the other hand, domestic brands haven’t been squeezed out by international fast fashion chains in Serbia yet, while a hangover from the Yugoslavian era is that Slovenian brands are seen as top- quality and are still very popular.
Wanting more
An important part of the fast fashion business model in the West, even though retailers may not admit it, is that clothes are so cheap they are seen as literally disposable. There is constant churn
as shoppers buy clothes then give or throw them away to make room for new purchases.
Further east, spending power just isn’t as high. The University of Helsinki’s Gurova says consumers have had time to embrace fast fashion retailers, “but they are not that cheap compared to in Western countries,” especially after a series of recessions and the recent slump in the value of the ruble.
“It’s important to note that despite more rapid growth in emerging markets most sales revenue and profit are still gener- ated by developed Western markets. In Western markets established fast fashion retailers like H&M or Inditex expand by opening stores of their new brands and investing heavily in online retailing,” says Kaluina.
“[The] largest players, like H&M and Inditex adapt rapidly and successfully
to new trends and market changes,” Kaluina adds. This has resulted, for example, in the expansion of H&M’s pre- mium brand Cos, and Inditex’s Massimo Dutti. “They open larger, more promi- nent stores or new concept stores in prime locations in Western Europe. For consumers looking for premium goods they expand premium brands (Massimo Dutti by Inditex) or launch collections with famous designers (H&M). They tap into the athleisure trend by expanding lines of sports clothing which partially compete with products from sports com- panies like Nike and Adidas.”
Follow the malls
In addition to lower spending power, emerging markets also don’t necessar- ily have the infrastructure fast fashion chains require. One aspect is transport infrastructure. Zara, for example, is known for producing small batches
of clothes that can then be restocked, tweaked or discontinued depending on demand, and new collections are deliv- ered to all their stores around the world twice a week. The importance of speed raises questions about the logistics of serving large, sparsely populated coun- tries like Kazakhstan or Russia, though to ensure speedy deliveries many fast fashion chains rely on air freight.
A bigger problem than getting the clothes and accessories to stores is finding the stores in the first place. In Russia, Gurova
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