Monthly survey on retail trade - 2024-08

Published on the 20th of September 2024

Turnover in retail trade fell slightly in August

Note: The change in retail sales does not reflect the change in total household consumption as the latter includes other items such as health care, education and rents

In August, turnover in retail trade declined very slightly by 0.2% compared with the previous month (data adjusted for seasonal and working day variations), after a rise of 0.3% in July. Sales of manufactured goods fell by 0.4% after increasing by 0.6%, with however considerable heterogeneity across product segments. Sales fell sharply for furniture (-7.2%, after 7.3%) as well as for new cars (-5.8% after -1.1%) and consumer electronics (-2.5% after 1.2%), while sales of sports equipment (4.5% after 0.9%), footwear (3.0% after -2.4%) and bicycles and motorbikes (3.0% after -0.4%) recorded relatively strong increases.
Food sales were fairly stable month-on-month (-0.1% after 0.0%).

In terms of distribution channels, sales of small retailers were up (1.1% after -0.8%), as were those of department stores (3.9% after -5.7%), while sales of supermarkets lost ground (-2.0% after 1.8%)

Three-month-on-three-month, overall turnover in retail trade was stable at 0.0%, with the rise in manufactured goods sales (0.4%) offsetting the fall in food sales (-0.5%).
Total manufactured goods and food sales
Month-on-month change (%) - Seasonally and working-day adjusted volumes
Notes:.
1) Sectors are classified according to the relative weight of the products included in the total aggregate of retail trade (weights are given on the right scale).
2) The aggregated and by sub-sector series are seasonally adjusted on an individual basis. Total and manufactured products series are reconstituted by aggregating the SA-WDA series of the sub-components.
3) SA-WDA: Seasonally and working-day adjusted.


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Updated on the 19th of September 2024