Production and trade
Russian textile production has been in a decay over the past years, leading therefore to a substantial drop of over 900 percent in employment rates in this sector by 2019 relative to the 2000 levels. Especially marked reduction was reported in volume of suits for men and boys and women’s bags and suitcases manufactured across the country.Low production rates contributed to the trade deficit, leading to the highly import-dependent market. The clothing trade overall, has experienced a significant decline throughout past years in the country. Italy, Germany, and Spain remain as major apparel providers of European origin to Russia.
Retail
The 2020 pandemic-related crisis boosted e-commerce sales in Russia, which had a positive impact on online apparel trade too. However, offline sales were hardly hit by the COVID-19-induced regulations. Yet, customers' clear predilection for traditional shopping experience versus online one, despite nearly identical average spend via both channels, is projected to be the main driver for offline channel recovery over the post-pandemic period.In aggregate terms, while apparel retail trade share in the total retail turnover keeps shrinking, the market remains on it's way of recovery from the 2014 setbacks. As for market payers, wildberries.ru has been dominating the online segment for several years already, while O'stin accounted for the largest volume of stores countrywide.
