It is not news that sales in stores are increasing. However, the fact that the sales volume in stores is growing is new. Sales volume had declined for a long time, but this changed in the fourth quarter of 2023 with a small growth of 0.3 percent.
Fashion stores sold 3.3 percent more items compared to a year earlier. Sales increased by 4.1 percent. Shops in shoes and leather goods, on the other hand, saw the sales volume decrease by 0.4 percent. Sales increased by 2.5 percent.
Retail as a whole
Retail sales in general converted more than 4 percent more in the fourth quarter of 2023 than in the same period a year earlier. The sales volume was 0.3 percent higher. More retailers went bankrupt than in the previous quarter. Statistics Netherlands reports this on the basis of new quarterly figures on retail.
The increase in turnover in the fourth quarter was due to higher prices and more sales. The fact that sales growth was partly achieved by a higher sales volume was the first time since the first quarter of 2022. The increase in turnover in the intermediate quarters was due to higher prices.
In 2023, retail entrepreneurs posted a 5.6 percent increase in sales. Sales volume was 2.4 percent lower than a year earlier.
More food sector turnover, but fewer sales
In the fourth quarter, sales in the food sector increased by more than 5 percent compared to a year earlier. Both supermarkets and food specialty stores – such as cheese shops and butchers – achieved higher turnover. For both branches, the amount of products sold did decrease. Nutritional specialty stores sold more than 2 percent less than in the fourth quarter a year earlier. This was almost 1 percent less at supermarkets.
In the non-food sector, sales increased by 2 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. However, less was sold (-0.4 percent). Especially shops in recreational items such as books or sports equipment and shops in consumer electronics and white goods sold less. Clothing stores therefore sold more than 3 percent more than in the same period a year earlier. Drugstores sold more than 1 percent more.
More online sales
In the fourth quarter, retail sales increased by 1.3 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. In stores that only sell online, sales grew by more than 4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023. Retailers who sell both online and through a physical store, also known as multichannelers, cut online sales by nearly 3 percent.
More bankruptcies
In the fourth quarter, 117 retail companies were declared bankrupt. The number of bankruptcies among retailers increased by more than 80 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. Then 64 bankruptcies were pronounced. Of all the bankruptcies in the fourth quarter, 13 percent were retail companies. This share was not so large in the period 2018 – 2023.
In the fourth quarter, there were nearly 166,000 retail companies (excluding service stations and pharmacies). That is 7.3 percent of all Dutch companies. Nearly 7 out of 10 retailers were a single-person company.
More retailers at the beginning of 2024 negative about economic climate
At the beginning of the first quarter of 2024, more retailers negatively assessed the economic climate in the next three months. On balance, more than 8 percent of entrepreneurs expected a deterioration. In the third quarter, this was still more than 4 percent on balance. Retailers were therefore slightly more pessimistic than average. On balance, 7 percent of all entrepreneurs in the Netherlands voted negatively about the economic climate in the next three months.
Source: FashionUnited, CBS
Photo: Shutterstock
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