金融危機催熱中東歐二手服裝市場

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The global financial crisis hit hard in central and Eastern Europe, but one industry has thrived: second-hand clothing stores.

While in western Europe the squeeze on household finances prompted many consumers to turn to discount retailers like Primark (ABF.L), their peers further east - where wages are significantly lower - have shifted to the used clothing sector.

Second-hand clothes retailers in Hungary,Poland,Bulgaria and Croatia have grown rapidly and, as the pace of income convergence between the West and Eastern Europe slows, they are investing millions of euros to expand their businesses further.

Brisk trade in Bulgaria, for example, has prompted one company - Mania - to open new stores in Romania and Greece, while in Hungary major player Hada is opening a 1.6 million euro sorting hall to cope with booming demand.

These companies and their rivals source their goods from western countries, buying them from so-called cash-for-clothes firms who pay people to recycle their old or unwanted outfits. Some are in pristine condition with the original price tag still attached.

There is no shortage of demand for their wares in central and eastern Europe, where most people are in lower-income brackets, by western European standards.

In Hungary,central Europe's most indebted nation, where the economy has yet to catch up to pre-crisis levels despite a jump in growth this year, the import of used clothes has more than doubled from 2008 figures to 56 million euros last year.

Hada, which has 60 stores in Hungary and controls about a third of the market by its own estimate, will open the 1.6 million euro sorting hall in eastern Hungary next year, adding 155 jobs to bring its workforce to around 900 people.

The firm imports 30-40 tonnes of used clothes per week from Britain- its main sourcing market. It has grown into an operation with annual turnover of 32.4 million euros ($40 million), from a family business started in 1995 and run from a decrepit hall in a remote village near the border with Ukraine.

In Poland, the region's biggest economy, over 40 percent of people shop for second-hand clothes regularly and 100 million euros worth of used clothes were imported in 2013, up from about 60 million on average in the previous years. They mainly come from Britain, Germany and Scandinavia.

Poland was the only EU member to avoid a recession during the global crisis but its recovery is also slowing as the Ukraine conflict and weak European growth are taking their toll.

However the consumer spending squeeze in western Europe has had a knock-on effect for used clothes sellers further east.

"Everything's got more difficult recently, because of the crisis, and so has this business," said Jolanta, who has worked in one of Warsaw's shops for six years.

"People in England are now getting poorer, and the clothes they get rid of - they are nowhere near as good as they used to be."全球金融危機重創了中歐和東歐，但二手服裝店的生意卻興隆起來。

當西歐人家庭開支拮据的時候，很多消費者轉去打折零售店，比方普聯超市（Primark ABF.L）。而東歐人因工資要低得多，則轉入了舊衣服市場。

二手衣服零售商在匈牙利、波蘭、保加利亞和克羅地亞迅速增加，鑑於西歐和東歐的收入增長有差距，他們正在投入數百萬歐元來拓展生意。

例如，保加利亞二手服裝市場的活躍促使曼妮雅公司（Mania）在羅馬尼亞和希臘增開新店面。同時，匈牙利的市場老大哈達（Hada）將開張一個價值160萬歐元的分撥中心，來應對不斷增長的需求。

這些公司和他們的競爭同行都從西歐的一些舊衣變現公司進貨，他們從當地人那裏收購舊貨和棄貨。有些衣服還是新的，價籤還沒被撕去。

中歐和東歐對服飾的市場需求不少，用西歐的標準衡量，東歐的大多數人都屬於低收入人羣。

匈牙利是中歐債務最多的國家，即使今年經濟有所起色，還是達不到危機前的水平。匈牙利去年進口了價值5600萬歐元的舊衣服，比2008年的兩倍還多。

哈達在匈牙利有60家店面，據他們自己估計佔有了該國三分之一的市場。它的160萬歐元的分撥中心將於明年在匈牙利東部開業，屆時將提供155個工作崗位，其員工總數將達到900人。

該公司每週從其主要貨源國——英國進口30-40噸的舊衣服。1995年它創辦於靠近烏克蘭邊境的一個邊遠小村落，是個在簡陋棚子裏的家庭生意，如今年銷售額已經達到3240萬歐元（合4000萬美元）。

波蘭是這個地區最大的經濟體，有40%的人經常在二手服裝店購物，前幾年平均每年進口價值6000萬歐元的舊衣服，2013年達到了一億歐元，主要來自英國、德國和斯堪的納維亞半島。

波蘭本來是歐盟中唯一在全球危機中躲過了蕭條的成員國，然而烏克蘭危機和歐洲增長的疲弱也讓波蘭的復甦相當緩慢。

西歐消費者縮減開支，卻對舊衣服東進銷售產生了連鎖反應。

約蘭塔（Jolanta）已經在華沙（Warsaw）的一家舊貨店裏工作六年了，她說：“最近越來越艱難，危機加深讓生意難做。”