June poor month for retail trade

Retail turnover was nearly 4 percent lower in June 2008 than in the same month last year. The decrease is due to the unfavourable shopping day pattern. June 2008 was two important shopping days (a Friday and a Saturday) down on June 2007. After correction for this negative effect, a marginal turnover remained. The volume of sales, however, decreased slightly.

Partly due to the unfavourable shopping day pattern, the various branches in the food and non-food sectors faced substantial loss of turnover. Supermarkets performed best. Supermarket sales dropped by over 1 percent.

The decline in turnover in June curbs growth in the second quarter. In the second quarter, sales were 2.3 percent higher than one year previously, the smallest growth since the fourth quarter of 2005. The increase could almost entirely be attributed to higher prices. The volume of sales remained the same.

Retail turnover