“Some fashion retailers are in the death spiral”

Bielefeld The past few years have been tough for brick-and-mortar fashion retail: while the shops remained closed during the pandemic, customers mainly bought online. The inner cities are now open again, but inflation is making people less interested in shopping. The industry is therefore experiencing a wave of insolvencies among dealers and manufacturers – be it Hallhuber, Reno or Peek & Cloppenburg Düsseldorf.

Daniel Terberger knows the situation in fashion retail particularly well. For 23 years he has managed the Katag purchasing association, which supplies around 350 stationary fashion retailers with 1,600 stores. He speaks of a “death vortex” in which some companies find themselves.

“The companies no longer get top goods, they get worse conditions and are only supplied by weaker manufacturers,” says Terberger in an interview with the Handelsblatt. This is how manufacturers and retailers weakened each other.