Luxury Retail Luring African Customers

Al Qarra - Paris, London, New York, the three cities synonymous with luxury brands for African consumers. Maybe, not for much longer. In April, in a bold move, the high-end Italian menswear group Ermenegildo Zegna opened a 155 square meter store in Victoria Island, Lagos. A bet no other luxury fashion company had been willing to take, until now.

An interesting move considering that when excluding (Gfx 1) South Africa, distribution space is highly concentrated in North and East Africa with 69 and 88 commercial centers respectively. Also when barring South Africa, East Africa has the largest percentage of commercial centers on the continent with 42%.