International Fur Trade : Trends, Challenges, Prospects

During the past ten years, international fur trade has been on an upturn – markets, sales volumes and prices have been growing drastically. Certification and labelling programs, animal welfare projects, ever-changing fashion and well thought-through marketing strategies targeting younger generation consumers all served as key factors in the fur industry recovery after the difficult 90’s, when ethical aspects of fur farming emphasized by PETA influenced public opinion. Emerging markets of the developing countries such as China and Russia are the main consumers of luxury goods, which do very well in spite of the financial crisis ravaging global markets. Nevertheless, future prospects of the fur industry are not very clear. The market is volatile and difficult to forecast, ethical disputes are not over and new regulations may be imposed. In this thesis, the major trends, challenges and future prospects of the international fur trade industry are analyzed in order to find out whether current the upturn is of a temporary nature or if further sales growth and expansion to the new markets is likely