DECRYPTION
After Naf Naf, Camaïeu, André and La Halle, the Celio brand is in turn swept away by the crisis. The male ready-to-wear brand asked Monday for its placement in the safeguard procedure. The list of textile companies in difficulty is growing a little more each day. But if all say they are victims of the coronavirus, the reality seems more nuanced.
"The coronavirus has a good back." This is what we hear quite regularly among the unions of companies in difficulty. Because if the signs of clothing chain the setbacks for several months - "yellow vests", strikes, health crisis triggered by the Covid-19 ... -, they are also victims of a fundamental trend.
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The fragile health of the sector
In just over ten years, clothing sales have dropped 15%. The reason: the boom in online sales, competition from the second-hand market and the arrival of behemoths, like the Irish Primark. But another factor must also be taken into consideration: the spread of the market. "It is one of the least concentrated markets in the world. The leader, Kiabi, weighs only 4% of sales in turnover, while in most consumer markets, the leader immediately weighs 15 at 20% ", points out Yves Marin, specialist in distribution.
"So it's a market in the process of skimming, since there are too many players, both in France and worldwide", continues this economist. "Barriers to entry are fairly low, and unfortunately there are too many people today compared to the size of the market." The virus is therefore above all the accelerator of an already well established trend. Yves Marin even speaks of a "Darwinian selection", which would have occurred with or without the coronavirus.