Zara will try on a replacement

The new owner of the Russian part of the business of the Spanish fashion group Inditex, Daher Group, may open the first stores under its own brands in the spring of 2023. One of the first will be a point in the Moscow shopping center “Aviapark” under the sign of Maag with women’s, men’s and children’s clothing, which could be created with the participation of Inditex representatives. As experts warn, Daher Group will have to face a decrease in demand, rising costs of doing business and increased competition.

Daher Group, the new owner of the Spanish Inditex business in Russia, plans to open the first stores in the country under its own brands in the spring of 2023, a source in the clothing market and two retail real estate consultants told Kommersant.

According to them, the first will be a point in the Moscow shopping center “Aviapark” under the sign of Maag with women’s, men’s and children’s clothing.

Inditex (brands Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Oysho, Bershka, Stradivarius) announced the suspension of all stores and online platforms in Russia on March 5, 2022, after the start of a military operation in Ukraine. In October, the group announced the sale of the Daher Group’s Russian business to the Daher family, which also owns the Lebanese Azadea Group. The latter franchises over 40 global brands, including Inditex, Adidas, Calzedonia, Mango, etc., in the Middle East, Gulf and Africa.

In October, the Russian division of Inditex replaced the name from “Zara CIS” to “New Fashion”, and Veronika Sokolova became the CEO of the company instead of Dorobantu Lusiana. According to her LinkedIn profile, since November 2008 Ms. Sokolova has been CFO of Inditex in Russia. Since December 2022, New Fashion has registered a number of domains with the word maag in the name, as well as vilet, dub, ecru. And at the beginning of this year, vacancies for purchasing and logistics managers, cashiers, salespeople, administrators and directors of stores in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Khabarovsk, Rostov-on-Don and other cities appeared in the New Fashion profile on HeadHunter.

According to Kommersant’s sources, Daher Group is already sewing new collections that were developed with the participation of Inditex representatives.

Fashion Consulting Group (FCG) CEO Anna Lebsak-Kleymans says that some stores may retain the offer of collections produced by Inditex on behalf of the Daher Group. But Inditex in this case will act solely as a manufacturing contractor, and the brands, marketing, sales, assortment and service management will be entirely with the Daher Group, she points out. The Russian Inditex told Kommersant that the Daher Group will do business in Russia under its own brands that are not related to the Spanish company. In Aviapark, Daher Group and Azadea Group, Kommersant did not answer.

Daher Group had to transfer the lease rights to most of the Russian Inditex stores. Before the suspension of work in the Russian Federation, the group had 502 points. According to Nadezhda Tsvetkova, head of retail space leasing at the CORE.XP retail department, about 20% of stores could be completely closed due to the optimization of inefficient outlets (Zara Home, Oysho, Massimo Dutti, Uterque), the decision of landlords to change operators and other reasons.

As Nadezhda Tsvetkova notes, the premises occupied by the stores of the Inditex group are, as a rule, located in high-quality shopping centers with some of the best locations. And taking into account the departure of some foreign fashion brands, Daher Group has a chance to occupy a niche in the Russian market by working on the recognition of its brands, she points out. Anna Lebsak-Kleymans adds that the Daher Group will also face a decline in purchasing power, rising logistics costs, more difficult international transactions, as well as strengthening the position of local brands and competition from parallel imports. In 2022, sales of clothing, footwear and accessories in the Russian Federation decreased by about 10%, to 2.4 trillion rubles. year on year, counted in FCG.

Alina Savitskaya