The latest annual figures on the volume of retail sales via either mail order houses or the Internet show a year-on-year increase of 12 % in the European Union (EU) in 2017.
Retail sales by mail order or the Internet have been increasing through much of the last decade and since 2014 annual growth rates have exceeded 9 %. For total retail sales the pace of growth has been slower, with annual growth rates of between 2% and 3% since 2014.
Among the EU Member States for which data are available, Estonia shows the largest annual growth in retail sales via either mail order houses or the Internet between 2016 and 2017 (+36 %), followed by Hungary (+32 %), Romania and Lithuania (both +26 %). In contrast, there were year-on-year falls in Portugal (-9 %) and Finland (-1 %).
The index of the volume of retail trade measures the evolution of the turnover in retail trade, adjusted for price changes (deflated), i.e. the evolution of the total amount of goods sold, based on data adjusted for calendar and seasonal effects.
The source data are here.
For more information:
- Eurostat overview of short-term business statistics
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