Italian footwear sector on the brakes

This is the picture of the sector taken by the latest report produced by the Centro Studi Confindustria Accessori Moda for Assocalzaturifici, which also notes a decrease in purchases by Italian families (-2.1% in both volume and spending).

For Giovanna Ceolini, president of Assocalzaturifici: “The phase of weakness in demand, held back by a lower propensity to buy on the part of consumers, the slowdown in several economies (not just China) and the uncertainty linked to geopolitical turmoil in several areas of the planet, has strongly penalized orders, not even sparing luxury. The economic downturn is having strong repercussions on companies’ production rhythms, which have amplified the use of layoffs. Negative balances are also growing in the number of employees and active companies compared to last December.”

The most significant effects have been in foreign trade. “Suffering, first and foremost,” Ceolini continues, ”were exports, which have always been the sector’s driving force, given that 85 percent of the pairs produced in Italy are sold outside national borders. As a result of the contraction in foreign sales (-8.5 percent), the sector’s trade balance, although in surplus by 2.34 billion euros, denotes a decline of -4.7 percent, despite the downsizing of imports (-11.6 percent).”

Examining export data in detail, the slight declines in sales in EU partners (-1.6% in value and -2.4% in quantity, favored by the resilience of flows to France, +2.6% in value and +1.5% in volume, confirmed as the first destination) are accompanied by setbacks in the order of -15% in non-EU outlets. Among these, the only positive signs are recorded for the Middle East (+10.7% in value) and the Far East (+2.9%, with China +12.6% and Hong Kong +22.6%), but these are to be read above all in the light of changes in the distribution strategies of luxury brands, particularly rooted in these areas, which now ship directly to their final destination markets goods that used to transit through hubs in Switzerland (which, not surprisingly, marks a -54.7% in value).

The U.S. gives up -3.5% in value (but with a decidedly more pronounced -14.7% in volume), while Russia, after collapsing in 2022 at the start of the conflict and rebounding in 2023, shows a -21.7% drop in value on January-May 2023.

On the domestic consumption front, the data are also not positive: in the first 6 months, Italian household purchases fell -2.1%, both in volume and spending. The most marked declines involved men’s shoes (-5.7% in quantity and -4.6% in spending), while women’s and children’s/youth shoes show reductions in the order of -3%, both in pairs and in value. “Sports and sneakers” show the least heavy contractions (-1% in volume and -0.6% in value).