In the clothing and accessories market, the report found smaller retailers have lost 900 basis points in market share to large retailers since March 2008.
Russell Zimmerman, executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, told SmartCompany it was “fair to say” that, after the global financial crisis, SMEs had found it difficult to get finance from lending institutions, which had slowed their progress.
“There has been a sorting out, some SMEs have had difficulties like Bettina Liano and Brown Sugar and retailers like that, so over the financial crisis there has been some sorting out,” he says.
Zimmerman also identified increased competition as a factor putting the squeeze on smaller retailers.
“I think the market and clothing and footware is going to become very crowded especially with Topshop and Zara joining the marketplace, although having said that, supermarkets will become more crowded in due course because people like Costco are moving into the supermarket area and Aldi is becoming a bigger challenger to Coles and Woolworths,” says Zimmerman.
However, Zimmerman says it is “not all bad news for the SME market”.
“As finance gets easier to obtain, SMES will go from strength to strength,” he says.
“One thing that you are going to see happen when things become easier is that bigger retailers are unable to react as easily as the SME sector. As they [conditions] get easier in the next couple of years, I think the SME market will come back as they can react and move much more quickly.
“SMEs are able to deal with their business at a very close level and they are able to give awesome service that the bigger retailers can’t give to the same degree.
“After all, eventually SMEs become bigger retailers.”
