{"id":12467,"date":"2024-05-08T12:44:23","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T12:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/canadian-apparel-market-outperforms-overall-retail-with-strong-sales-in-womens-and-luxury-segments-trendex-report\/"},"modified":"2024-05-08T12:44:23","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T12:44:23","slug":"canadian-apparel-market-outperforms-overall-retail-with-strong-sales-in-womens-and-luxury-segments-trendex-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/canadian-apparel-market-outperforms-overall-retail-with-strong-sales-in-womens-and-luxury-segments-trendex-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Apparel Market Outperforms Overall Retail with Strong Sales in Women’s and Luxury Segments: Trendex Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A new report by Trendex North America, a marketing research and consulting firm, said Canadian apparel retail sales growth slowed in 2023, but certainly exceeded the reported 2.2 per cent in total retail sales last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report said the specific growth rate cannot be determined as Statistics Canada changed during 2023 its methodology for reporting apparel sales. But what can be determined by Statistics Canada\u2019s new data set are: Apparel sales totaled C$37.6 billion in 2023; Sales in apparel specialty stores increased a strong 6.8 per cent; and Women\u2019s apparel sales increased at a faster rate than men\u2019s sales.<\/p>\n

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Randy Harris<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Randy Harris, president and owner of Trendex North America, said 2023 was a pretty good year for the Canadian apparel market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe growth in the apparel market was greater than the two per cent growth in overall retail sales. So there is not a whole lot of indication that consumers were being squeezed by inflation and high interest rates as it affects their apparel purchasing behaviour,\u201d said Harris.<\/p>\n

\u201cApparel was one of the standout categories last year that the government tracks. Women\u2019s apparel grew faster than men\u2019s with all women\u2019s categories increasing. When we look at the specific segments of the market from a channel standpoint, sporting good stores were probably the big winner and that is because of the addition of stores like Decathlon and an increasing apparel offering by retailers like Sporting Life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other outstanding segment is the luxury apparel segment which probably grew at about 10 per cent last year and there were two major reasons for the growth. One is the rebound in tourism, especially from Asia. And number two is the expansion in the number and quality of doors of luxury retailers. So everything that you\u2019re seeing on the Mink Mile (Bloor Street in Yorkville) or in Yorkdale where luxury retailers are expanding their stores or upgrading them is having an effect on sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

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PLUS CF Pacific Centre (Image: PLUS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Harris said another segment that is growing is the resale apparel market \u2013 the fastest growing segment in the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s because there are consumers that have been stretched financially and that segment has gravitated towards the resale apparel segment. Also it\u2019s kind of an in movement with younger people to say I bought my stuff at a Salvation Army or a Goodwill. It\u2019s kind of an in thing right now. And the other thing is there\u2019s some general concern about the issue of sustainability but I\u2019m personally not convinced to the degree that Canadians are actually buying a product because it\u2019s been used as opposed to buying a new product. Conventional wisdom is saying that but I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s in fact as important as people think it might be. I think only time will tell about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris said other winners last year were apparel retailers who cut back their inventory levels dramatically. It had a very little effect on their sales but it did improve, relatively speaking, their profitability.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetailers really made an effort last year like Reitmans to cut back their inventory levels. It\u2019s very hard to give specific numbers in terms of what an individual retailer did because very few retailers as you can imagine publish those numbers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we did have an eight per cent drop overall in apparel imports last year which was unheard of. Nobody has talked about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only loser last year for apparel was ecommerce, said Harris.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the United States, apparel ecommerce fell one per cent and we think in Canada it fell between one and three per cent,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the reasons that apparel ecommerce did not grow is that luxury apparel ecommerce did not grow. This is the same thing that\u2019s happening in the United States. People have decided that when it comes to buying a luxury item they would rather go into a store, feel it and touch it and see how it looks for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that we have an increasing number of luxury retailers, people want to go into those stores and buy it. They don\u2019t want to order something online when they can go in and try a number of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing that\u2019s interesting is with the growth of SHEIN and Temu, these are low priced ecommerce retailers. So what\u2019s happening is the more the consumer buys them they\u2019re not buying from other traditional apparel retailers whose prices on average are higher. What you have is the same number of units being sold via ecommerce but they\u2019re less dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

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SHEIN Vancouver Pop-up (Image: SHEIN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some key findings from the Trendex report:<\/p>\n