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Italian Market Insight, Autumn 2020

As the months have passed by, people have learnt to live with the new rules of wearing face masks, mainly because many understand that this pandemic will not just fade away; we will have to live with COVID for many more months to come.

In Italy, inside stores, restaurants, bars, etc… we still have a strict face mask rule and people are really paying attention to this. When you take a seat in a restaurant or, for example at school, then you are allowed to take the face mask off, otherwise you have to wear it. The face mask rules are in combination with disinfecting your hands when entering or leaving a building. Outside you only have to wear a face mask that covers your nose and mouth if you can’t keep the minimum distance of 1 – 2m. Of course, not everyone is happy about it but it seems to be the only way to keep our infections rate low enough to keep the economy and school system running. However, the community of Coronavirus conspiracy theorists is growing pretty fast in Italy and many view the pandemic as a disease that was brought to life by the powerful influences around the world. Said community is trying to attract more and more members and is heavily attacking the government through social media, Youtube and so on…

While the economy is open everyone is just happy to be able to work and everyone is making a collaborative effort to try to avoid a second lockdown, especially as winter is approaching. Winter will be the next hurdle in terms of a holiday season affection infections explosion.

Business-wise a lot of small stores are still fighting for survival as the months of being in lockdown are still in their bones; cashflow and liquidity aren’t back on track yet, even with the different options available for help on offer from the state. In the grand scheme of things, the help is just a drop in the ocean. It’s not just small stores suffering, the bigger retailers located in big city centres or department stores still struggle as people are still avoiding hanging out in overfilled and crowded places.

Skateboarding is still booming and complete boards are sold out nearly everywhere, and out of all hardware, completes have seen the biggest increase in sales since March 2020. Even though winter is approaching, skateboarding’s still doing very well and the boom sees no signs of heading towards a downturn. This keeps the skate and surf stores happy as the boom is helping them survive this very tricky 2020.

As the winter season is approaching, everyone is getting a bit nervous because if the infection rates start to go up again, which has already been slowly happening throughout August and September, the winter season will be in danger. If people cannot use cable cars or can only use them under heavy rules, it could potentially have a negative affect on winter sales and the overall season, which would be catastrophic for many retailers, rental businesses as well for apres ski, hotels and restaurants.

SS21 pre-sales have been completed and, as expected, have been conservative due to stores really fearing that the pandemic is not over yet and will still be a thing in 2021. For sure, the big winner so far in 2020 has been the online store business which has been a lifeline for stores to maintain their turnover as lockdown has seen more Italians than ever turn towards digital shopping. The need for businesses to have an online presence is now a necessity everywhere and every business owner is taking steps to making their business more digital.

But overall, the way we manage living with this pandemic will be crucial during the coming months. The collective effort of the public will decide how successful a country and their economy will be in the next one or two years.