Published
Apr 20, 2020
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UK clothing & footwear market forecast to fall by £14bn this year, says GlobalData

Published
Apr 20, 2020

The UK fashion sector is set to be among the worst hit industries by the coronavirus with clothing & footwear spend predicted to plummet this year, falling 26.1%, or £14 billion.


Fashion spend should fall further than expected this year due to the lockdown extension



That’s according to data analytics firm GlobalData, which had earlier been predicting a fall of around 20% due to the original three-week lockdown.

Analyst Chloe Collins said that it’s understandable that the lockdown will hit physical shops particularly hard: “As the government has extended the UK lockdown for at least three more weeks, we expect that offline clothing & footwear sales in 2020 will further contract, falling 33.6% on the year, as the demand for fashion is increasingly decimated.” 

And she added that with other European countries, such as Austria and Italy, gradually loosening their restrictions [but] keeping most non-essential stores closed, we expect fashion stores in the UK to remain shuttered for a number of weeks once the lockdown is eventually lifted, and not begin reopening until June.”

GlobalData also expects footfall to remain low even when stores reopen “as consumers will be cautious about visiting crowded areas, and prioritise catching up with family and friends that they have been unable to see during lockdown. Consumers will also prefer to spend time outside enjoying the summer weather rather than browsing retail stores, and will focus spend on experiences over fashion items”.

And Collins thinks there will be more “casualties” in addition to those firms that have ceased trading or gone into administration so far during this crisis. 

That would mean “more empty spaces on the high street, limiting physical fashion spend further”.

Online sales are predicted to decline by 7.9% in 2020, even though online retail is the only option to access many product categories. While some e-stores have boomed, the picture hasn’t been as rosy as it might be for online stores. The decline GlobalData is predicting is no surprise given that there have been periods when webstores were closed, periods when they have only a limited product offer available and there’s a general consumer trend away from buying fashion.

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