The fashion sector is like that of agriculture: it makes its forecasts always looking at the sky . Last year's summer sales campaign was bad because it was bad weather until well into June. Above we came from a mild winter and, as Ángel Asensio, president of the Spanish Federation of Apparel Companies (Fedecon) and Fashion Spain explains, without cold, people do not buy coats, just as if it is not hot people do not buy clothes Of summer.

This summer sales campaign has been the opposite: the sun has been where it had to be when it had to be. The forecast is that sales grow 3% over last year, according to Acotex, the employer of the sector. "This campaign will not be aggressive in prices, because businesses have sold well in the previous months and have not accumulated too much surplus," says Eduardo Zamácola, president of Acotex, the National Textile Trade Association.

From El Corte Inglés, which has traditionally been the emblem of these campaigns for the queues that formed at the doors of department stores, say they are "very happy" with this campaign, "especially in fashion, home and technology."

March was very good, with a 12% increase in sales ; in April, due to the Holy Week effect, they fell 8%. In May they rose 3% and in June, 0.5%. The accumulated is 2.9% rise, a very good fact if you take into account that last year the adverse weather did not encourage and sales fell 2.3%.

The sales disappear

This year the sector has appreciated that “the effect called the discounts had disappeared. There is no longer the atmosphere that was before, ”says Zamácola.

Until 2012 the sales were limited to the months of February and July: it was time to buy at a discount. But now each brand can offer products at any time, which has made "the impact of the sales dissipates, as there are all year," says Angel Asensio, Fedecon.

The sales disappear, at least as we knew them. Now they are more anarchic (year-round), more aggressive (higher discounts) and sometimes they invoice less: well because people, accustomed to buying cheap all year, are no longer interested in sales so much; well because as discounts are more aggressive, companies enter less.

"The margin is lost, so you can sell more but bill less, we are becoming a country of low cost prices," denounces the president of Fedecom.

The sector, in changes

«The textile sector is undergoing very profound changes and its evolution no longer depends on the establishment of a mandatory period of sales, but on another multitude of aspects of enormous importance : very strong irruption of online commerce and new technologies, climatological aspects ... » , Say in Anged, the National Association of Large Distribution Companies.

These changes are reflected in the results of the companies. Inditex presented its quarterly results in June, with a 3% increase in sales. It expects to grow more than 4% in 2019. H&M increased its sales by 8% in June in Spain. Mango will detail his annual accounts in the coming days.

Inditex, H&M and Primark account for almost 40% of fashion sales in Spain.

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