Retail Trade - October 2007

In October, seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade except of automotive segment dropped by 0.1%, month-on-month, at constant prices and increased by 6.7%, year-on-year. A marked growth was recorded in automotive segment (by 2.8%, month-on-month, and by 9.4%, year-on-year). Not seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade increased by 7.9% and in automotive segment by 12.5%. Seasonally adjusted sales in hotels and restaurants increased by 0.6% in October, m-o-m, not seasonally adjusted by 1.5%, year-on-year.
Seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade (CZ-NACE 52) dropped in October by 0.1%, month-on-month, at constant prices, of which food, beverages and tobacco by 1.1% while the non-food goods sales increased by 0.6%. The m-o-m growth of the trend component maintained its long-term stability and stood at 0.5% in October like in the previous six months. (Table 1).

Graph 1
Year-on-year, after seasonal and working day adjustments (one working day more in October 2007) sales in retail trade except of automotive segment increased by 6.7% at constant prices, with only working day adjustment they increased by 6.3%. A 7.9% growth of not seasonally adjusted sales in retail trade except of automotive segment came mainly from the sale of non-food goods (growth by 10.4%). Sales from food, beverages and tobacco increased by 4.1%, i.e. by 0.2 percentage points more than the sliding average for the last 12 months.

Broken by size groups of enterprises the biggest growth of sales occurred in enterprises with 50 to 99 employees (+12.9%). In other size groups the growth ranged from 7.6% to 8.0%.

In October, the total growth came mostly from specialized stores with other non-food goods with typical Christmas goods such as books, stationery and drawing materials, optical equipment, sports equipment, PC, watches, jewellery, toys, etc. The second and third major contributions came from specialized stores with electronics, electrical appliances, furniture and other household articles and non-specialized stores with food, beverages and tobacco predominating (incl. big chain stores). The fastest growth recorded sales in retail trade with insignificant contribution to the total growth operated via Internet or mail-order houses. Stagnation of food sale in specialized stores came probably from price growth; although consumers spent there by 9.3% more compared to 2006 they bought for more money the same quantity of food as a year ago (Table 3).

The price deflator (related to the corresponding period of the previous year) was 102.7%. The biggest price increase was recorded in specialised stores with food, beverages and tobacco (by 9.3%) which was the biggest prices growth in retail trade since June 1998 when prices of cosmetic and toilet articles increased, y-o-y, by 9.7%. In non-specialised stores with food, beverages and tobacco predominating prices went up by 7.5%, prices of other product groups increased by maximum to 2.8%. In contrast, consumers recorded lower prices (-1.8%) in stores with other non-food goods which contribute significantly to total sales, further in sale via mail order houses (-1.1%), in stores with household articles (-0.9%) and stores with second-hand goods (-0.6%).

In October 2007, according to data released by Eurostat, seasonally adjusted constant price retail sales in the EU27 increased by 0.4%, month-on-month, and by 1.9%, year-on-year (working days adjusted). Among member states for which data were available, year-on-year sale increases were recorded in Poland (+13.3%), Latvia (+11.4%), Lithuania (+9.1%), Slovenia (+6.7%), Sweden (+6.1%), Finland (5.1%) Estonia (+4.7%), the United Kingdom (+4.2%), Luxembourg (+2.7%), Bulgaria (+2.3%), Slovakia (+2.1%), Portugal (+1.6%) and in Spain and Austria (both +1.4%). Prices dropped in Germany (-3.4%), Belgium (-1.4%) and Denmark (-0.8%).
In the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 50), seasonally adjusted sales increased month-on-month at constant prices by 2.8% and by 9.4%, year-on-year. Not seasonally adjusted sales increased year-on-year by 12.5% which, along with July, was the biggest y-o-y growth of sales in 2007. This growth was strongly contributed to by sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles (growth by 18.1%), sale of automotive fuel increased by 3.0%.

In retail trade incl. the automotive segment (CZ-NACE 52 + 50), seasonally adjusted sales at constant prices increased by 0.9% month-on-month and year on year by 7.6%. Not seasonally adjusted sales grew by 9.4%, year-on-year.

In hotels and restaurants (CZ-NACE 55) seasonally adjusted sales increased in October by 0.6% month-on-month and not seasonally adjusted sales increased by 1.5%, year on year, which was contributed to by growth of sales in hotels and camping sites by 4.2% of which mainly by relatively significant growth in big hotels (+6.6%). Restaurants, bars and canteens which contributed by about 70% to total sales recorded only a 0.4 % growth.

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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: 6 December 2007
End of data processing: 11 December 2007
The data for October 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 )