Retail sales fell in June as consumers pared back discretionary spending on clothes, DIY products and big ticket items such as electrical goods.
Provisional Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures suggest the volume of sales declined 1.3 per cent in the month of June — after a similar decline in May — and 6.6 per cent in the year to the end of last month.
The sector has been hit by rising prices over the past year with consumer prices rising by 9.1 per cent in the year to the end of June, the CSO said earlier this month.
The sectors with the largest monthly decline in June were electrical goods (-13.5 per cent), hardware, paints and glass (-11.3 per cent), and clothing and footwear (-6.3 per cent). Car sales were also down 2.1 per cent in the month, while supermarket sales fell 1.2 per cent in the month. Bar sales volumes, meanwhile, were up 8.2 per cent in June, while furniture and lighting sales increased 25.9 per cent and the volume of spending in department stores jumped 19 per cent.
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Overall, bar sales have increased by more than half (+54.5 per cent) in the 12 months to the end of June. However, this figure is misleading because of the restrictions on the pub trade that were in place for much of 2021 due to the pandemic. Compared with pre-Covid February 2020, the volume of pub sales remain 24 per cent lower, the CSO said.
The value of fuel sales increased 28.5 per cent in the year despite a 6.9 per cent fall in sales volumes. The CSO said this reflects the higher price of retail fuels for cars and other vehicles compared with a year ago.
The sector with the next largest annual reduction in sales volumes were other retail sales (-29.8 per cent), a diverse category that includes, among other things, fertilisers, jewellery and some household fuels. Fertiliser prices have risen sharply this year on foot of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both countries being big exporters of urea, ammonium nitrate and animal feeds. Food, beverages and tobacco (-14.6 per cent) and Motor Trades (-14.5 per cent) also declined in the year.
Meanwhile, the proportion of retail sales transacted online by Irish registered companies in June was unchanged from June 2021 at 4.9 per cent in June 2022 but down from 6.7 per cent in June 2020.
