Online retail has grown significantly in the last six years, reaching 4.3 billion euros, four times higher than in 2014 and increasing by almost 20% compared to 2018. The situation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the development of online commerce after non-essential stores were closed, while employees were forced to work from home and children to learn at a distance. Electro-IT stores remained open throughout the state of emergency and recorded increasing sales both in physical stores and especially in the online sector.
"The online sales of home appliance retailers are growing and we expect this to generate a high need for storage space. Currently, these retailers occupy an area of 330,000 square meters of logistics space, most of the warehouses being located near Bucharest, in the projects of developers P3 and CTP. In the next 18-24 months, the logistics area rented by Electro-IT retailers could increase by at least 50% ", said Andrei Jerca, Head of Industrial Services, CBRE Romania.
Another category of tenants that continues to expand on the industrial space market is that of retailers in the Home & Deco sector, according to the Romania E-commerce report.
„Home & Deco retailers with an online presence occupied at the end of 2019 approximately 40,000 sq m of logistics spaces, being only at the beginning of the expansion and investments in the logistics sector. Some of them chose Bucharest as the main location for the physical stores, which is why the logistics spaces are also in this area", added Andrei Jerca.
Regarding the evolution of online commerce, CBRE expects new increases, on the one hand because the internet penetration rate continues to increase, this year the threshold of 70% will be exceeded, and on the other hand because almost 25% of Romania's population is made up of generations Y and Z, young people aged between 15 and 34, passionate about technology and who prefer online shopping.
"An interesting phenomenon to note during the isolation period was the fact that retailers with a strong online presence and a clearly defined online strategy did much better than retailers for whom online presence was secondary to physical stores. We expect retailers in the Electro-IT and Home & Deco sectors to allocate new resources to the development of online sales platforms, while reinventing the shopping experience and consulting services offered in physical stores", said Carmen Ravon, Head of Advisory & Transaction, Retail, CBRE Romania.
On the market of industrial and logistics spaces in Romania, in the first three months an area of 97,000 sqm was delivered, the total stock thus reaching 4.49 million sqm, according to CBRE Research data. Most of the newly delivered area, about 80%, is in Bucharest and was represented by the expansion of two projects, WDP Ștefăneștii de Jos and Eli Park I, while the remaining 20% was delivered in the center of the country, respectively Brașov and Sibiu. Also in the first quarter of 2020, a total area of 172,400 sqm was traded. The largest transaction in the first quarter was represented by the pre-lease of an area of about 70,000 sqm by Ikea in the CTPark Bucharest West project. In total, Bucharest attracted 81% of the total leasing activity, while the west and northwest of the country, along with the east and northeast, attracted 19%. (source: economica.net)
