Sales grow for supermarkets and shops selling hardware and electricals

Shoppers on St. Patrick Street, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

Shops selling hardware and electrical and electronics, as well as supermarkets, were the winners over a three-month period amid the Covid-19 restrictions last year, according to official figures.

CSO figures show that in volume terms, the sales of both hardware and electrical outlets climbed 32% in the three months through the end of November from the same period a year earlier, while sales of pharmaceutical products and at supermarkets rose by 15.4% and 12.6%.  

That compares with the average gain of 5.2% across all 13 types of retail businesses, including car sales and bars, in terms of their volume of sales for the three months from a year earlier.

However, in terms of the value of those sales, or the money that was taken in, all 13 retailer businesses notched a gain of less than 2% over the same period, suggesting that some retailers had to offer steep discounts.

Volume of Retail Sales decreased by 12.8% in November 2020https://t.co/ritJstZC4e #CSOIreland #Ireland #RetailSales #Services #Retail #Business #BusinessStatistics #IrishBusiness pic.twitter.com/utJl8zBKnN

— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) January 8, 2021

So-called non-specialised stores, which includes supermarkets, rose strongly also in terms of the value of their sales, gaining almost 11% in the year, according to the CSO figures.

And the CSO figures also show that in volume terms car sales rose 5% in the year and were up by almost 6% in terms of the value of those sales. With restrictions on wet pubs staying in place, bar sales were down by over 70% in the three months from the same period in 2019.               

The figures show that the volume sales of retailers selling clothing, footwear, and textiles, as well as fuel, fell sharply.

Over the same three months, clothing and footwear sales fell by almost 21% in volume terms from the year-earlier period, while sales of fuel were down by just over 14%.   

For November, the CSO figures show that overall sales in volume terms across the 13 retail business types fell 12.8% from October and were down 4.7% from November 2019.