Italy's retail sales dip slightly in December 2023

In the non-food product category, the year-on-year (YoY) figures for December showed most sectors were facing a downturn in sales value. Notably, the clothing sector reported a marginal YoY decline of 0.1 per cent, and the combined sector of shoes, leather goods, and travel items witnessed a 0.7 per cent YoY drop.

However, the fourth quarter of 2023 brought some positive news, with the overall value of sales increasing by 0.3 per cent compared to the previous quarter, despite the volume of sales decreasing by 0.2 per cent, as per Istat.

December 2023 marked the 33rd consecutive month of YoY sales value growth in the retail trade sector, with a modest rise of 0.3 per cent. In contrast, the volume of sales during the same period experienced a significant fall of 3.2 per cent.

Breaking down the data, large-scale distribution saw an encouraging increase of 1.9 per cent compared with December of the previous year, while small-scale distribution suffered a 1.2 per cent decrease. Non-store retail sales, which include online and mail-order shopping, declined by 3.3 per cent.

Despite the overall decline in physical store volumes, online retail continued to carve out growth, with a 1.1 per cent increase in sales when compared to December 2022.

For the year 2023 as a whole, Italy's retail sector saw a 2.8 per cent increase in the value of sales, which contrasts with a 3.7 per cent fall in the volume of sales when juxtaposed with the data from 2022.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DP)