To prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, EU Member States have taken a wide variety of restrictive measures. Among other limitations, non-essential retail shops have closed, affecting the retail trade volumes.
In March 2020, EU’s volume of retail trade fell by 10% compared with February 2020 and by 8% compared with March 2019. The fall of the EU retail trade continued in April 2020 when the retail volume fell by 11% compared with March 2020 and by 18% compared with April 2019.
The strongest declines recorded for textiles, clothing, and leather products
In the EU, sales of food, beverages and tobacco registered an increase of 5% in March, which is significantly higher than a usual increase (around 0.2%). After the significant increase of March, the retail trade volume of food, beverages and tobacco fell by 6% in April.
Retail trade of non-food products excluding automotive fuel dropped by 20% in March 2020 and by 15% in April 2020, both compared with the previous month.
- The strongest declines were recorded for textiles, clothing, and leather products (-54% in March and -21% in April).
- The sales volume of pharmaceutical products, cosmetics and similar increased by 1% in March yet fell by 9% in April.
- Unusually large reductions were recorded also in the purchase of electric products and furniture (-24% in March and -7% in April) as well as computers, books and similar products (-27% in March and -4% in April).
The sales of automotive fuel followed the trends of non-food products as they fell by 24% in March and by 25% in April.
Source dataset: sts_trtu_m
Supermarkets recorded increases in sales, department stores decreases
Around mid-March 2020, many countries closed non-essential stores, whilst groceries, supermarkets and pharmacies could remain open. This had a clear effect on the retail trade volumes of various distribution channels in both March and April 2020.
You can read more the Statistics Explained article on impact of COVID-19 crisis on retail trade.
Note: The European Union (EU) includes 27 EU Member States. The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Further information is published here.
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