Data from Eurostat showed that retail sales fell by 0.5% in October, offsetting a 0.5% increase in September. Economists expected a 0.3% decrease. Sales fell for the first time since June, and signaled jitters among consumers despite accelerating wage growth and faster-than-expected economic growth. Retailers could continue to struggle in the coming months after a key indicator of consumer confidence in the eurozone declined in November.
In annual terms, retail sales rose by 1.9%, slowing compared to September (+3%, revised from +2.9%). Consensus estimates suggested an increase of 1.7%. As for the EU countries, retail sales decreased by 0.3% on a monthly basis and increased by 2.1% compared to October 2023.
The data showed that in the eurozone, compared with September, the volume of retail trade increased for food, drinks, tobacco (+0.1%), but decreased for non-food products, except automotive fuel (-0.9%) and for automotive fuel in specialized stores (-0.3%).
Compared with October 2023, the volume of retail trade in the eurozone increased for food, drinks, tobacco (+0.6%), automotive fuel in specialized stores (+1.9%) and for non-food products, except automotive fuel (+2.7%).
As for the EU countries, the highest annual increases in the total retail trade volume were recorded in Luxembourg (+15.4%), Romania (+10.2%) and Croatia (+6.7%). The largest decreases were observed in Finland (-2.9%), Belgium (-2.5%) and Estonia (-1.6%).