Galeries Lafayette: upturn continues in 2017

After a troubled 2016, following the terrorist attacks which hit France, French department store group Galeries Lafayette started 2017 strongly, confirming the upturn which began since last December, in the wake of an increase in tourist visits to the country.

"The year has started well," said on Monday Agnès Vigneron, Director of the Galeries Lafayette Haussmann branch, the group's Parisian flagship.

In the first five months of 2017 the boulevard Haussmann store recorded "double-digit growth" compared to 2016, said Vigneron. Last year, the store's footfall had fallen sharply (-10%), affected by the downturn in tourist visits to the French capital after the November 2015 terrorist attacks.

"We started to see a recovery from the end of 2016 and, since then, the trend has continued," said Agnès Vigneron. "We are now back to 2015 volumes, and even a little higher," she added, noting how the majority of the store's French and foreign customers are back shopping at Galeries Lafayette.

"Even though we must remain cautious, we think growth will continue throughout the summer, and we are rather optimistic," she added, a few days after the summer end-of-season sales kicked off. The Galeries Lafayette Haussmann store, with a revenue of approximately €2 billion, is the top European department store branch in terms of sales. Half of its clientèle consists of tourists, notably from Asia.

As for the rest of the Galeries Lafayette group, which operates 57 stores in France and 5 abroad, "2017 has been characterised by a return to growth. Even if the performance of other stores across France is not the same as that of the Paris Haussmann branch, they are all growing very slightly," said a spokesperson for the group.

As part of an annual investment plan worth €150 million, the group is busy renovating its stores outside Paris and upgrading their retail approach, to counter the effects of the generalised slump in the apparel market, which is affecting their sales.