The global pandemic of Coronavirus has surely left its lasting effects on life as well as the fashion industry. Many high-end fashion labels could not sustain the financial blow due to COVID-led lockdowns and pulled down the shutters to some of their stores, permanently.
Joining this bandwagon is the Spanish retailer Inditex, who announced the closure of 1000 to 1200 Zara stores globally!
Inditex, the parent company of brands like Zara, Massimo Dutti, Berksha, Pull& Bear amongst many others have taken a decision to shut down 16 percent of its global outlets and focus more on its online sales. After reporting its first quarterly loss, the retailer took the decision of cutting down the retail number of its offline stores to around 6700, 6900 from the current total of 7,412. The retailer said that it would absorb the smaller stores that faced heavy losses.
The Spanish retailer said that it would invest 900 million euros a year in the next three years to focus on the large stores in prime locations and boost its online sales. The parent company assured that the headcount of the employees would remain the same as they would offer the staff with other roles such as dispatching online purchases.
Inditex witnessed a massive financial knockout as the company reported a net loss of 409 million euros last year as its sales dipped down to 3.3 million euros from a whopping 5.9 million euros. However, its online sales rose to 50% year-on-year during quarters and were up to 95% year-on-year in April.
(Source- Times Now)
