Garment sector pins hopes on demand uptick during Ramadan, eid to improve profit margins, minimise loss

AMMAN — The garments, accessories and shoes sector is “relying” on eid and the remaining days of Ramadan to boost their otherwise deteriorating sales, according to their representative in the Amman Chamber of Commerce, Asaad Qawasmeh.

The Textile and Readymade Clothes Syndicate recently said that the sector suffered a 60 per cent drop in total revenue in 2018 compared with 2017.

“So far this year, sales are continuing going down sharply,” the syndicate’s president, Muneer Deyeh, said.

“Shop owners are counting on the next few weeks for a sales increase. Ramadan and eid are always a boost for sales in the food and clothes sectors and, given that the food sector has been revived in the past few weeks, we hope it is our sector’s turn,” Qawasmeh said.

“In fact, I have heard from several big shop owners that if sales do not improve by Eid Al Adha, they are pulling out of the sector.”

Deyeh also said that shop owners are “looking forward to making up for past losses in the coming period, and might not wait too long after that to close their shops if the sales do not live up to their expectations”.

Eman Saeedi, whose father owns several clothes and shoe stores and used to have a store of her own, said her father had five shops and has now closed four of them.

“Last year’s revenue could only keep one store running, so my dad closed down my shop and my brother’s, keeping only the original store. From five stores to one, that was such an unexpected loss,” she added.

The syndicate’s president said that, although the owners are “hopeful”, they are also “realistic, and have in mind last year’s unsold items. As a result, they have imported goods with a total of JD85 million instead of the JD100 million belonging to the same period of last year”.

“That is JD15 million less, which indicates that some are still expecting the worst,” Deyeh said.