Fashion ROute 2022: data extracted from the first real-time Romanian fashion retail study

Fashion ROute is the first conference dedicated to Romanian fashion retail, a Wall-Street Romania event that brought together industry professionals to debate the trends, challenges and perspective of local online fashion stores.

The event is already at its sixth edition, and this year it aimed to x-ray the journey of clothing and accessories from the production stage until they reach the shelf.

Fashion ROute 2022 also addressed the perspective of the local online stores segment, a Romanian e-commerce segment that has experienced impressive growth in recent years, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Corina Cimpoca, founder of MKOR, was one of the speakers at Fashion ROute 2022, alongside Raluca Radu, CEO of Answear, Ana Maria Conache, Country Manager Freywille, and Alina Țiplea, Co-founder of Ateliermerci.ro & #altrntvshop.

Corina has presented exclusive data extracted from the first real-time Romanian fashion retail study (link to Romanian version) – Fashion Consumer Trends.Live.

The data helped in identifying the consumption habits in the local fashion retail, the market evolution during previous year, as well as the changes observed in consumer behaviour regarding fashion shopping and what they expect from The Store of Tomorrow.

• The fashion market experienced a 3% YoY growth after the first pandemic year, consumption value thus reaching 2.35 billion euros, according to Eurostat and Fashion Consumer Trends.Live data
• The value of fashion retail in Romania amounts to 3.77 billion euros in 2022, recovering after contracting by 6.3% during the pandemic (2020)
• The value of online fashion retail in 2021 was 894 million euros, a 26% YoY increase in 2021, being the sector with the highest growth in the domestic e-commerce market

According to the first real-time fashion retail study in Romania, H&M is the preferred clothing retail brand, being chosen by 7.6% of fashion consumers.

The brand is followed by Decathlon and C&A in consumer clothing preferences, with 6.7% and 6.6% consumption shares. Moreover, both brands are present in the top 3 most appreciated retailers, up in the ranks compared to the previous month, according to the latest Consumer Trends.Live data, from June 2022.

As far as footwear brands are concerned, Deichmann is at the top of Romanians’ preferences, with a market share of 9.8%.

The most loved footwear top is completed by CCC, with a market share of 8.1%, and Decathlon, with a market share of 8%.

CCC and Decathlon also rank in the top 10 most loved fashion brands, the latter registering growth in June 2022 compared to the previous month, as shown by Consumer Trends.Live data, from June 2022.

Top most loved Romanian fashion brands in 2022 is updated monthly and accessible for free 24/7 on the Fashion Consumer Trends.Live page.

➡ Request a free Fashion Consumer Trends.Live demo and see how .Live data helps you monitor your brand’s NPS and key KPIs to gain valuable insights about your consumers and competitors.

Top most loved fashion brands is based on the NPS score provided by consumers. The average NPS score in fashion retail is 52.

Discover the NPS score report in the Romanian retail market >

Almost half of fashion consumers in Romania prefer to purchase fashion items from shopping malls (46%).

The local fashion consumers make, on average, 2.5 fashion purchases per month and spend, on average, 300 RON per shopping session, as shown by Fashion Consumer Trends.Live data from June 2022.

Romanians allocate 12% higher budgets for online fashion shopping, compared to brick and mortar purchases, an aspect also confirmed by Raluca Radu, CEO of Answear, who emphasised at Fashion ROute 2022 that online fashion retailers thrived during the pandemic.

According to Fashion Consumer Trends.Live data from June 2022, 21% of consumers purchased fashion items exclusively online during the previous month.

Fashion Consumer Trends.Live data shows that 6 out of 10 consumers use their mobile phone when shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. But Millennials and Gen Z are the fashion consumer segments that use mobile pay most often.

8 out of 10 consumers have interacted with digital technologies during their fashion shopping sessions, but Millennials and Gen Z are the ones who interact the most with digital technologies when purchasing fashion items.

When it comes to consumer experience in The Store of Tomorrow, Raluca Radu, CEO of Answear, foresees a future in which fashion purchases will be omnichannel, with no difference between online and offline, and will effectively integrate mobile devices to facilitate shopping.

Thus, fashion consumers can benefit from the “buy now, pay later” experience, which will allow them to choose the products they want without having to pay for them on the spot.

But the luxury goods market will remain faithful to brick and mortar, because the experience customers have in stores and the interaction with the sales consultant are fundamental in luxury shopping, underlines Ana Maria Conache, Freywille Country Manager.

This is also the case for products made from alternative, environmentally friendly materials. Alina Țiplea, Co-founder of Ateliermerci.ro & #altrntvshop, mentions that people still need to see these products in physical stores, considering the paradigm shift they are proposing in the fashion industry (replacing natural leather with vegan leather made from coconut, apple or pineapple).

In fact, these retailers’ perspectives are also confirmed by Fashion Consumer Trends.Live consumer data, which shows a strong inclination towards offline purchases of more than half of the study respondents, while almost a quarter opt for omnichannel experiences.

Fashion Consumer Trends.Live provides real-time access to Romanian fashion retail data, updated monthly.

• Sample: minimum monthly N = 400 respondents
• Sample characteristics: national representative by gender, age and region. 95% confidence level, max. error +/-1.4%
• Target: general population of Romania aged between 18 and 65 years
• Research method: opinion poll
• Instrument: questionnaire
• Data viewing: interactive dashboard, online
• Approach: online, through the MKOR Panel

Consumer Trends.Live is the digital tool aligned to one of the most innovative and dynamic industries – retail. The retail market requires market data to keep up with the pace of the industry, especially during challenging times such as those in recent years.

The Consumer Trends.Live platform can be explored in a demo session with an MKOR consultant. In this session, the following are available:

• Consumer Trends.Live dashboard
• Top platform benefits
• Recommendations on how to extract the data necessary for your business strategy

Ask for your free demo ->