The company chaired by Marta Alvarez is facing a difficult start to the year in Spain after a Christmas campaign marked by the absence of the public in its shopping centers. At the same time, Amazon has been able to beat market forecasts in the fourth quarter and has billed 9% more than the previous year.
El Corte Inglés faces a 2023 that a priori will be complicated taking into account the national economic situation and the management problems derived from the departure of Víctor del Pozo, former CEO who was in charge of the company for five years. January has started with a rise in inflation and that does not help consumption, but what worries the managers of the national trade giant above all is the impossibility of attract new audience.
According to Hispanidad, the centers are empty and the problem is that online sales are still far from the objectives of the company that observes astonished as amazon aliexpress and other giants are getting further away. Nor do the telecommunications and energy subsidiaries that are in the eaves or segments that were profitable in their day such as El Corte Inglés viajes that is “dismantling due to malnutrition” as pointed out by the aforementioned media.
In the field of technology El Corte Inglés to launch a weekend without VAT in their offers without much repercussion and it is that the buyer profile of this type of product prefers to opt for other giants such as Mediamarkt, PC Componentes or Amazon itself, which sees how its sales figures do not stop growing. According to the data that has just been reported, its sales reached 149,200 million and despite this the company will do without more than 18,000 employees to adapt to the new economic situation. In the case of El Corte Inglés, employees also fear that new adjustments will take place and it is that we already published weeks ago that the company plans to “robotize” areas such as logistics to try to reduce its high costs.
At the informative level, the media are silent about the precarious situation of the company because despite the crisis it continues to be one of the large institutional advertiserss. Of course, everything can go wrong if the rumors are confirmed that José Luis González-Besada, communication director of El Corte Inglés who at the time was the main striker of the sisters in their fight against Dimas for the presidency of El Corte English, has been offered to Sanchez Galan to return to Iberdrola where he already was and did not exactly leave a very good memory.