Way out of a hopeless situation – Kommersant

The Japanese clothing chain Uniqlo, having received in Russia at the end of 2022 more than 10 billion rubles. losses, decided to close most of its large stores here. The retailer has not yet officially announced its final withdrawal from the country, but the market believes that this process has actually been launched. Most of the sites vacated by the network will be occupied by the Russian Gloria Jeans. However, experts warn, it is still difficult for local brands to attract a large flow of customers, unlike international companies.

In place of the first Russian Uniqlo store in the Moscow Atrium shopping center, a Lime point will open, another Japanese brand site in another large facility – AFI Mall will be occupied by Gloria Jeans, two consultants in the retail real estate market told Kommersant. Lime could not get comments. Gloria Jeans told Kommersant that in the coming months, the retailer’s stores will open in several places previously occupied by Uniqlo, including AFI Mall. Prior to this, the clothing chain rented Uniqlo space on Novy Arbat in Moscow and at the Fashion House in St. Petersburg.

A year ago, after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Uniqlo announced a temporary suspension of its stores in Russia. Until March 2022, 50 outlets operated under the Uniqlo brand in the country, at the end of January 2023 there were 27 of them left, which were temporarily closed. But in fact, the network is now completely curtailing business in the Russian Federation, says Marina Malakhatko, director of the CORE.XP retail department. Uniqlo did not provide comments.

For the past year, the retailer has been selling stock online. Due to this, judging by the reporting data of Uniklo Rus for 2022, the company could gain 12.07 billion rubles. At the same time, the network received a loss of 10.78 billion rubles, although Uniqlo’s Russian business has been profitable since 2018. Losses are generated by closed stores, the rent of which has to be paid, says Ms. Malakhatko.

In the same way, the situation developed with Western brands that announced their withdrawal and sold stocks online. So, last year the loss of the Swedish H&M reached 9.72 billion rubles. with revenue of 29.26 billion rubles. The Spanish Inditex (Zara, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, etc.) lost 8 billion rubles. with revenue of 9.67 billion rubles. According to CORE.XP, since the beginning of 2022, only 15.38% of international retailers have completely left the Russian market, 9.34% have suspended their activities. It is expected that the performance of brands that have decided to stay in Russia for the time being is much better – these are mainly Italian brands, Marina Malakhatko notes. This is confirmed by the reports of such companies for 2022.

Thus, Kaltsru LLC (Intimissimi, Calzedonia chains) had a revenue of 26.53 billion rubles, and a profit of 1.45 billion rubles, Russiatex (a subsidiary of TEDDY SPA – the owner of the Terra Nova chain) – 4 .34 billion rubles and 385 million rubles. respectively.

The remaining chains do not intend to significantly expand the number of their outlets yet, consultants say. Therefore, the owners of shopping centers do not have a very large choice among Russian retailers to whom they can re-lease the space of departed companies. Now it is Gloria Jeans that has become one of the main players occupying the vacated space, says Ms. Malakhatko. The network is ready to borrow such facilities for stores with an updated concept, Vladimir Melnikov, head of the board of directors of Gloria Jeans, said in February. The network has already opened more than 30 stores, where previously there were outlets including H&M, Decathlon, Marks & Spencer.

However, the calculation of Russian retailers to rent the vacant premises at a discount has not yet materialized. Now the average rate for local fashion operators in shopping centers is 12-13% of the store’s turnover, while Uniqlo, Inditex, H&M paid about 4-6%, says Vanchugov & Partners Managing Partner Alexey Vanchugov. “This is due to the fact that international chains have sales per 1 sq. m of occupied area is several times higher than that of Russian ones,” he explains. In addition, large foreign brands were traffic-generating for shopping centers. Among Russian retailers, with the exception of grocery chains, Mr. Vanchugov notes, there are practically no such companies yet.

Khalil Aminov, Daria Andrianova