Decline In Retail Sales Continues in the Czech Republic

Have you noticed the Christmas decorations arriving in shops later this year? Year-on-year sales in retail trade decreased by nearly 10% in the Czech Republic in October. Businesses and shoppers are reacting to the worsening mood caused by war, post-pandemic socio-financial factors and high inflation. Photo credit: KB/BD.

Brno, Dec 12 (BD) – Year-on-year sales in retail trade decreased by 9.4% in real terms to October, and by 1.8% compared to September, according to the latest data published by the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO).

Sales of non-food products fell by 11.2%, fuel by 8.0%, and food by 7.0% y-o-y. Consumers are worried about high inflation, have less money, and are less willing to spend. Due to inflation, wages dropped 8.9% in real terms in Q3 2022, the biggest decrease in the nation’s history. Workers are therefore able to buy one-tenth less with the same wages than one year ago.

Do you remember the huge boom of virtually all delivery services during the Covid pandemic? Foreign food delivery companies such as the UK’s Deliveroo and Germany’s Delivery Hero have lost around half their value in the stock market this year alone. Customers are returning to bricks-and-mortar stores, and investors are cautious about their choices. In early November, Amazon.com became the world’s first public company to lose a trillion dollars in market value, “as a combination of rising inflation, tightening monetary policies and disappointing earnings updates,” according to Subrat Patnaik and Jeran Wittenstein from Bloomberg. In late October, the company projected sales in the holiday quarter were far below expectations.

Back on the national scale, “all major categories of non-food stores showed a year-on-year decrease, with the exception of pharmaceutical and healthcare stores. Internet and mail order business continued to decline continuously for the tenth consecutive month,” said Marie Boušková, director of the Department of Trade, Transport, Services, Tourism and Environment Statistics of the CZSO. 

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