Slight growth for retail trade

• Turnover 1.3 percent up in August
• Prices up, volume down

According to figures from Statistics Netherlands, turnover for Dutch retailers  was 1.3 percent up in August 2008 on twelve months previously. Prices rose by 2.5 percent, while the volume of sales was just over 1 percent smaller.

Turnover was negatively affected by the less favourable shopping-day pattern for August in 2008 than in 2007. After correction for this, the increase came to nearly 3 percent.

Shops selling food, drink and tobacco realised a turnover growth of just over 4 percent in August. This increase consists of a price rise of just over 5 percent and a volume decrease of nearly 1 percent.

Turnover in non-food outlets hardly grew at all in August. Prices rose by nearly 1 percent and the volume decreased by nearly 0.5 percent. Within non-food, stores selling household items had a substantially higher turnover than twelve months previously: their turnover rose by 7 percent.