Retail trade - February 2024

Sales in retail trade increased in real terms by 1.6%, year‑on‑year (y-o-y) in February; in the month-on-month (m-o-m) comparison, they decreased by 0.8%. Sales for sale and repair of motor vehicles increased by 2.7%, y-o-y, and by 0.8% in the m-o-m comparison.

Sales in retail trade, except of motor vehicles¹⁾ decreased in real terms by 0.8%, month‑on‑month, in February. Sales for sale of automotive fuel decreased by 1.0% and both sales for sale of non-food goods and for sale of food decreased by 0.8%.

Sales in retail trade increased in real terms by 1.6%, year-on-year, in February; sales for sale of non-food goods increased by 2.4%, sales for sale of food by 1.1%, and sales for sale of automotive fuel by 0.3%.

“Year-on-year growth of sales in retail trade adjusted for price effects continued for the third successive month already. The growth rate decreased, compared to the previous month, in February. Sales for sale of non-food goods, food, and automotive fuel were growing, year‑on‑year. Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet contributed the most to the total increase of sales in retail trade,” Jana Gotvaldová, Head of the Trade, Transport, and Services Statistics Unit of the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO), says.

Sales in retail sale of cosmetic and toilet articles in specialised stores increased by 13.3%, year‑on-year; sales in dispensing chemist, retail sale of medical and orthopaedic goods in specialised stores increased by 5.2%. On the other hand, sales decreased in retail sale of cultural and recreation goods in specialised stores by 10.0%, in retail sale of other household equipment in specialised stores by 9.9%, in retail sale of information and communication equipment in specialised stores by 9.6%, and in retail sale of clothing, footwear and leather goods in specialised stores by 0.5%. Sales in non-specialised stores with food, beverages or tobacco predominating increased by 1.8%, whereas in retail sale of food, beverages and tobacco in specialised stores they decreased by 5.4%. In other retail sale in non‑specialised stores, sales increased by 16.4%. In retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet²⁾ sales increased by 16.1%.

Sales for sale and repair of motor vehicles³⁾ increased in real terms by 0.8%, m-o-m. In the year-on-year comparison, sales increased by 2.7%. Sales for sale of motor vehicles (including spare parts) increased by 3.5%, y-o-y, whereas sales for repair of motor vehicles decreased by 0.7%.

International comparison of retail sales development in Member States of the EU is available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/short-term-business-statistics/publications.

____________________

Notes:

All data in the text of the news release are at constant prices. The year-on-year development is published after having been adjusted for the influence of the number of working days (calendar effects). Month on‑month rates have also been seasonally adjusted. 
Enterprises are classified to the economic activity according to their principal (prevailing) activity, which is such an activity, from which the enterprise gets the highest value added.
Data for January 2024 have been revised in accordance with the CZSO Data revision policy. Data for February 2024 are preliminary; final data for all months of 2024 will be published in March 2025.

Starting from the news release with results for January 2024, the base period for short-term statistics changed. Besides the change of the base period at fixed-base indices (that are newly compared to the average of the year 2021 instead of the average of 2015), also the weighting scheme of the year 2021 has been used. In relation to the transition to the new base period, a revision for the year 2023 has been made, too.

Methodology: https://csu.gov.cz/methodology-monthly-sales-indices-in-trade

¹⁾ CZ-NACE 47 – retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles
²⁾ CZ-NACE 4791 – retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet
³⁾ CZ-NACE 45 – wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles

Responsible head at the CZSO: Pavel Vančura, Director of the Trade, Transport, Services, Tourism, and Environmental Statistics Department, phone number: (+420) 274 052 096, (+420) 732 348 337,e-mail: pavel.vancura@csu.gov.cz
Contact person: Jana Gotvaldová, Head of the Trade, Transport, and Services Statistics Unit, phone number: (+420) 274 052 691, (+420) 735 130 284,e-mail: jana.gotvaldova@csu.gov.cz
Method of data acquisition: direct survey of the CZSO (“SP 1–12”)
End of data collection: 26 March 2024
End of data processing: 2 April 2024
Related outputs: time series in the Public database: (https://vdb.czso.cz/vdbvo2/faces/en/index.jsf?page=statistiky#katalog=31029).
Next news release will be published on: 9 May 2024