Retail Trade - August 2007

In August, seasonally adjusted sales in ‘retail trade except of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ increased by 0.3% month-on-month at constant prices. The year-on-year increase was 7.2%, not seasonally adjusted sales 6.9%. The growth of sales of food, beverages and tobacco accelerated to 5.4%, non-food goods on the contrary recorded this year’s lowest increase of 7.9%. Seasonally adjusted sales in hotels and restaurants increased by 0.7% month-on-month in August, not seasonally adjusted sales increased by 1.8% year-on-year.
Seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade (CZ-NACE 52) increased by 0.3% month-on-month at constant prices in August, of which non-food goods by 0.5% while prices of food, beverages and tobacco stagnated. The growth of the trend component by 0.5% followed up on the trend from the previous four months and was 0.1 p.p. lower compared to the average of the last 12 months (Table 1).

Graph 1
Year-on-year, after seasonal and working day adjustments (August 2007 and 2006 had the same number of working days), sales in retail trade increased by 7.2% at constant prices. Not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 6.9% which was the third lowest growth from the beginning of the year owing most to the sale of non-food goods that this year recorded the smallest increase (7.9%) in August. Conversely, food, beverages and tobacco recorded the second highest growth (5.4%).

Almost 30% contribution to the total growth had non-specialised stores with food, beverages and tobacco predominating and a 23% contribution had specialised stores with other non-food goods. The fastest sale growth occurred in, in terms of share little significant, retail sale via Internet or mail order houses (16.6%). A two digit growth was recorded also in stores with textiles, clothing and footwear and right below 10% ranged the year-on-year sale growth in stores with pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles. (Table 3)

Broken down by size group of enterprises, the biggest growth of sales occurred in enterprises with 50 to 99 employees (+11.1%). Enterprises with 100+ employees reported a growth by 7.9%, with 0 to 19 employees by 5.9% and with 20 to 49 employees by 5.0%.

The price deflator (related to the corresponding period of the previous year) was 101.9%. Prices were up in stores with food, beverages and tobacco, in both specialised and non-specialised (+6.7% and +5.4%, respectively), in non-specialised stores with non-food goods predominating (+1.5%), in retail sale not in stores (+1.0%) and in stores with pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles (+0.8%). Prices dropped the most in stores with other non-food goods (-2.1%), which have a significant share in total sales, in sale via mail order houses (-1.5%), in stores with second-hand goods (-1.3%), in stores with household goods (-0.9%) and stores with textiles, clothing and footwear (-0.4%).

In August 2007, according to data released by Eurostat, seasonally adjusted constant price retail sales in the EU27 increased by 0.3% month-on-month and by 2.6% year-on-year (working days adjusted). Among member states for which data were available, year-on-year sale increases were recorded in Latvia (+19.1%), Poland (+14.1%), Lithuania (+13.2%), Estonia (+12.0%), Finland (+8.2%), Sweden (+7.4%), Slovakia (+5.2%), the United Kingdom (+4.8%), Spain (+4.3%), Bulgaria (+3.7%), Belgium (+2.4%), Portugal (+2.0%), Luxembourg (+1.1%), Denmark (+0.8%), Austria (+0.5%) and Slovenia (+0.1%). Prices dropped in Germany (-2.9%).
In the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 50), not seasonally adjusted sales rose by 8.1% year-on-year at constant prices; sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles increased by 10.2% and sale of automotive fuel by 4.8%.

In retail trade incl. the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 52 + 50), seasonally adjusted sales at constant prices increased by 0.1% month-on-month and not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 7.3% year-on-year.

In hotels and restaurants (CZ-NACE 55) not seasonally adjusted sales increased in August by 1.8% year-on-year. A growth was recorded in hotels and camping sites as well as restaurants, bars and canteens (0.8% and 2.2%, respectively). In hotels and camping sites the growth was contributed to by hotels and similar establishments (+2.1%) while other establishments for short-term stays recorded a drop of sales. Restaurants with an almost two-thirds contribution on total CZ-NACE 55 sales recorded the same growth as hotels; a slight drop of sales of bars (-0.8%) was eliminated by enterprises with collective catering (+4.5%).

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Note
1) The whole time series is seasonally adjusted every month; indices in the graph are changed retroactively.

Contact: Alena Hellerová, tel. (+420) 274052921, e-mail: alena.hellerova@csu.gov.cz
Data source: CZSO direct survey in enterprises
End of data collection: 9 October 2007
End of data processing: 12 October 2007
The data for August 2007 are preliminary; final data for all months of 2007 will be available in June 2008 at the latest. Monthly data since 1997 are available in time series ( /sales_indices_monthly_retail_trade_hotels_and_restaurants_time_series )