The French brand of clothing, footwear and accessories Kiabi plans to leave the Russian market. This was announced on December 25 by a representative of the Russian office of the chain of stores.
“We have already notified all partners and employees of the company and will gradually close all stores in Russia,” RBC quotes a statement from the press service of Kiabi.
It is noted that it is planned to complete the work of all retail outlets, including the online store, in the first half of 2022.
Leaving Russia is due to the fact that the company “could not find its own unique business model” in this market, explained a representative of the Russian office of the brand.
As follows from the data of the SPARK system, the Russian legal entity Kiabi has shown losses for at least the last five years.
Earlier, on December 8, it was reported that the Russian market of counterfeit products by the end of 2021 could grow by 10%, to 6.5 trillion rubles. It was noted that mostly luxury clothes and shoes were counterfeited.
As Anna Lebsak-Kleimans, the General Director of Fashion Consulting Group in Russia, explained to Izvestia, the economic downturn and instability contribute to the intensification of the demand for counterfeit – in such periods, due to reduced income, people are more actively looking for “loopholes” for any form of savings, and the purchase of replicas instead of originals – one of them.
