The Impact of Crisis on Retail Apparel Market

The financial crisis 2008-2009 had impact on all spheres of Russian economy, including apparel retail industry. However, apparel industry is not homogeneous and can be divided into two segments: mass and premium. This drives us to a question, whether these two sectors had the same financial performance during the period of financial crisis. The aim of this thesis is to determine whether the difference between financial performance of luxury and mass companies was statistically significant and to examine which of these two clusters was affected by crisis more. This research applies the following analytical and statistical methods, such as graph analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis of panel data and MANOVA analysis. The results showed that financial performance of the two segments was different and that mass clothing market, compared to premium, was more affected by fluctuations in Russian economy performance. After the evaluation of results, further research proposition was introduced.