Textile industry and coronavirus – the impact of the pandemic on sales performance: a case study of Inditex

The global coronavirus pandemic has caused major problems in the business of companies in the textile and fashion industry all over the world. This pandemic contributed to the development and increasing application of e-business. It also caused increased development of online sales for many companies to meet customer demands in uncertain market conditions. The main objective of the paper is to present the potentiality of the application of a defined set of key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring and comparative analysis of sales performance in the year due pandemic (2020) and the year before the pandemic (2019). KPIs were defined based on the parameters that were the most exposed to changes during the emergence of a coronavirus disease. The analysis is conducted on the example of one of the leading companies in the textile and fashion industry, Inditex. Based on the results, it can be concluded that despite a significant reduction in total sales in 2020, Inditex managed to achieve a high sales success rate, although the sales target achievement rate was lower compared to the previous year. According to a unique business model based on a global, flexible, digitally integrated, and sustainable online platform, Inditex had a big increase in online sales, which had a key role in the year of the pandemic when 640 retail stores were closed.