Retail Trade - May 2007

In May, seasonally adjusted sales in ‘retail trade except of motor vehicles and motorcycles’ increased by 0.6% month-on-month at constant prices. The year-on-year increase was 7.1% or 6.3% (not seasonally adjusted). The biggest share in the year-on-year increase of total sales was recorded for specialised stores with household goods, other non-food goods and non-specialised stores with food, beverages and tobacco predominating. Sales in hotels and restaurants grew by 0.3% in May.
Seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade (CZ-NACE 52) increased by 0.6% month-on-month at constant prices in May, which was the same growth as in the last twelve months, however by 0.1 p.p. lower than in the previous three months. Prices of food, beverages and tobacco increased by 0.7% and non-food goods prices rose by 0.5% in May. The trend component grew by 0.5%, which was by 0.1 percentage points less than in the last twelve months and also in the previous three months (Table 1).

Graph 1
Year-on-year, after seasonal and working day adjustments, sales in retail trade increased by 7.1% at constant prices, identically like in April. Even though May 2007 and 2006 had the same number of working days, the growth following the working days adjustments only was different compared to the growth of not seasonally adjusted sales (not adjusted sales grew by 6.3%, adjusted by 7.4%). There is a connection with the fact that this year the May holydays were on Tuesdays. Particularly this day is taken by the model for sale adjustments as the strongest selling day for non-food goods in specialised stores, which have the biggest influence on the current sales development in retail trade. The strongest selling days for food, including chain stores, are Fridays.

Not seasonally adjusted sales for non-food goods grew by 7.8% year-on-year and food, beverages and tobacco by 4.0%. The biggest contribution to the total growth in May had specialised stores with electronics, electrical appliances, construction materials, furniture and other household goods, other non-food goods and non-specialised stores with food, beverages and tobacco predominating. The fastest increases in sales were recorded in stores with household goods, in stores with textiles, clothing and footwear and other non-food goods. (Table 3)

Broken down by size group of enterprises, the biggest growth of sales occurred in enterprises with 50 to 99 employees (+9.4%). Enterprises with 20 to 49 employees reported an increase of 7.6%, enterprises with 100+ employees 7.0% and enterprises with 0 to 19 employees 5.1%.

The price deflator (related to the corresponding period of previous year) was 101.4%. Prices were up in stores with food, beverages and tobacco, in both specialised and non-specialised (+5.3% and +4.3%, respectively), in stores with pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles (+2.9%), in retail sale not in stores (+1.5%) and in non-specialised stores with non-food goods predominating (+1.1%). On the contrary, prices dropped in stores with other non-food goods (-2.7%), in sale via mail order houses (-1.4%), in stores with second-hand goods (-1.3%), in stores with household goods (-0.9%) and stores with textiles, clothing and footwear (-0.5%),

In May 2007, according to data released by Eurostat, seasonally adjusted constant price retail sales in the EU27 dropped by 0.1% month-on-month and on the contrary rose by 1.8% year-on-year (working days adjusted). Among member states for which data were available, year-on-year sale increases were recorded in Latvia (+24.3%), Lithuania (+16.5%), Estonia (+15.2%), Slovakia (+9.9%), Poland (+8.4%), Bulgaria (+6.7%), Sweden (+5.6%), Finland (+5.1%), the United Kingdom (+4.0%), Spain (+3.4%) and Slovenia (+0.6%). Prices dropped in Luxembourg (-9.9%), Denmark (-2.2%), Germany (-1.9%), Portugal (-1.4%), Belgium (-1.3%) and Austria (-0.3%).
In the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 50), not seasonally adjusted sales rose by 8.6% year-on-year at constant prices; sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles increased by 12.3% and sale of automotive fuel by 2.5%.

In retail trade incl. the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 52 + 50), seasonally adjusted sales at constant prices increased by 0.8% month-on-month and not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 7.0% year-on-year.

The growth of sales in hotels and restaurants (CZ-NACE 55) slowed down in May compared to the previous months of this year. Not seasonally adjusted sales increased by 0.3% year-on-year at constant prices: by 0.9% in restaurants while in hotels they dropped by 1.0%.

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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: 10 July 2007
End of data processing: 13 July 2007
The data for May 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 )