Many market observers point out that the brand loyalty of consumers in Italy has been lowered than before. They change to prefer the products with high quality but cheap price.
Although the international brand sportswear is still dominating the whole Italian market, the consumers tend to buy those on sale or par products resulted from the financial crisis. Like most industries, influenced by the decreasing demand, the sales of sportswear slipped during the past several months. The gross turnover of the Italian sportswear industry is about 450 million euro, but it is expected to go down almost 2% this year.
Nevertheless, several retailers can still remain a steady or increasing income, such as the large-scale retailer Cisalfa. Based on Osio Sopra, Italy, Cisalfa directs mainly to the household consumer group. It has 125 branch retailers in total and plans to open three large shops.
Another large sportswear market set up in Italy is Decathlon which is a French company. After years of positive expansion, it has established 52 wild scale stores and become the main local sportswear shop.
Besides selling international brands such as Nike, Puma, Adidas, Cisalfa and Decathlon also sell own brand sportswear from which the profits enjoyed a sustainable growth during the past several years.
The two retailer companies have practiced different strategies to promote their own brands. Decathlon originates some own brands such as Quechua, Kalenji and Tribord, which are sold in the branches. Cisalfa reestablishes the brand image for the once popular well-known brands, including Best Company and Ellesse. The two brands occupy one fourth saleroom of Cisalfa.
Both of the two retailer groups want to gain larger control power and increase the sale of par goods to meet the shrewd consumers’ demand for the cheap but excellent products. In order to lower the selling price and keep the quality, the retailers purchase from the buyers in Hong Kong and mainland China. (Besty)
