Footwear and leather goods collapse, but the balance for 2020 is saved thanks to financial services and online sales of shoes (for the most part), leather goods and sportwear. German giant ANWR, which puts manufacturers and retailers on the market, will likely have a “challenging” 2021, also due to the “prudent behavior of commercial credit insurers and the banks’ reluctance to give loans”. Physical retailers will need financing, consulting, training and management, including solutions to manage leftover stock and those for e-commerce platforms.
German giant ANWR
German giant ANWR has over 5,000 affiliated indipendent companies in the footwear, sport and leather goods segments. Additionally, 20,000 other wholesale and retail companies use the offer of the group, which directly employs 1,400 people. The company closed 2020 with a revenue of 17.8 billion euro. Footwear sales decreased by 20.1% (1.233 billion euro), leather goods’ by 36% (reaching 68.5 million), while the sport segment grew by 1.1% to 1.3 billion euro. Good results also came from ANWR’s online channel on the schuhe.de platform.
Financial services take off
The challenges of 2020, for ANWR, were actively countered by the resilience of the affiliates’ financial services, up by 2.5%, to reach 15.3 billion euro, 13.8 of which are managed by banks owned by ANWR. Simply put, DZB Bank and Aktivbank, both of which managed to do business on segments less penalized by the pandemic, compared to fashion. Frank Schuffelen, CEO of ANWR Group stated how the problems caused by the lockdown will further complicate the retail segment’s 2021. As reported by shoes.biz, Schuffelen mentioned “prudent behavior of commercial credit insurers and the banks’ reluctance to give loans”.
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