Clothing And Footwear in Colombia

Euromonitor International's Clothing And Footwear in Colombia market report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data, allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. It identifies the leading companies, the leading brands and offers strategic analysis of key factors influencing the market - be they new product developments, packaging innovations, economic/lifestyle influences, distribution or pricing issues. Forecasts illustrate how the market is set to change.

Why buy this report

• Get insight into trends in market performance
• Pinpoint growth sectors and identify factors driving change
• Identify market and brand leaders and understand the competitive environment

Product coverage

Clothing; Footwear

Executive summary

Market performance linked to economic performance

The retail market for clothing and footwear in Colombia is strongly related to the country's economic performance. In general, consumption declined during the recession years during the beginning of the review period. Clothing and footwear reached its lowest value of the review period in 1999. From 2000 to 2002 the market recovered slowly but most of companies focused their efforts on the external market due to the continued poor performance of internal demand. In 2003, continued economic recovery helped sales grow quite strongly. Growth is expected to continue in 2004, with a projected current value increase of almost 17%.

Domestic clothing industry modernizing

Colombia's clothing and textile industry invested in equipment and process modernization over the last five years. Clothing is highly fragmented with many brands for different targets. Most sales are made during the second have of the year, particularly around Christmas.

There are many brands, designs, qualities and prices, which make clothing in particular viable and competitive. Because of that, leading companies tend to focus on specific targets, segmenting by product, quality and price. However, they are increasing their focus on outright brand recognition as well as expanding into external markets.

Footwear industry not as advanced

Footwear in Colombia is also highly fragmented. However, it is more labour intensive than clothing and is characterised with lower levels of production technology.

In the premium segment, brand recognition is important. Because of that, some companies are able to charge a higher price in addition to their superior design and product quality. In the medium- and low-price segment there are many companies that mainly compete on price and have little in the way of brand equity.

Price dictates point of purchase

Hypermarkets dominate clothing sales in Colombia because they are better able to exploit economies of scale to offer consumes very attractive prices. Indeed, clothing has become an important percentage of their sales. Hypermarkets are even using their own factories or forming partnerships with manufacturers to help better control costs. As a result, they are gaining distribution against independent stores.

As for footwear, independent stores still have the main distribution share. This is also partly due to the fact that independent shoe stores can offer consumers competitive prices. Some manufactures have their own stores and they are able to successfully compete on price with hypermarkets and specialty retailers thanks to the fact that they are able to control costs through vertical integration.

Forecast performance

At the end of 2003, more than 60% of the entrepreneurs affirmed that their situation was good and they expect sales to improve in 2004. There are high expectations for two reasons. First, internal demand is expected to grow because the economy is expected to continue to perform strongly. Second, the focus on the external markets thanks to the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, APTDEA and the possible bilateral Free Trade Agreements with the United States are projected to further support clothing and footwear's development.

Table of contents

CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR IN COLOMBIA : MARKET INSIGHT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CLOTHING AND FOOTWEAR

Market Performance

Table 1 Retail Sales of Clothing and Footwear: Value 1999-2004

Table 2 Retail Sales of Clothing and Footwear: % Value Growth 1999-2004

FORECAST MARKET PERFORMANCE

Table 3 Forecast Retail Sales of Clothing and Footwear: Value 2004-2009

Table 4 Forecast Retail Sales of Clothing and Footwear: % Value Growth 2004-2009

DEFINITIONS

CLOTHING IN COLOMBIA

SECTOR PERFORMANCE

Clothing's performance linked to economic performance

A fragmented industry

A highly competitive marketplace

Technology and investments bolster Colombian clothing

Table 5 Retail Sales of Clothing: Value 1999-2004

Table 6 Retail Sales of Clothing: % Value Growth 1999-2004

LEADING COMPANY PROFILES

Confecciones Colombia SA Everfit-Indulana

Punto Sport

RETAIL DISTRIBUTION

Table 7 Retail Sales of Clothing by Distribution Format: % Analysis 1998/2003

FOOTWEAR IN COLOMBIA

SECTOR PERFORMANCE

Table 8 Retail Sales of Footwear: Value 1999-2004

Table 9 Retail Sales of Footwear: % Value Growth 1999-2004

LEADING COMPANY PROFILES

Bosi

C.I. Colseven S.A.

RETAIL DISTRIBUTION

Table 10 Retail Sales of Footwear by Distribution Format: % Analysis 1998/2003