Merchandising

As of Monday, supermarkets across Greece are to start restricting the number of customers allowed inside a shop at any given time, in line with new, stricter regulations issued by the government to curb the spread of the coronavirus. 

Online supermarkets are currently so inundated with orders that deliveries can take up to a week.

As e-supermarket visitor numbers were low - albeit growing - before the coronavirus epidemic hit, most didn't have the necessary infrastructure to deal with a threefold increase in orders in just a few days. The demand for storage space and delivery vehicles has shot up.

Turkey's calendar-adjusted retail sales volume with constant prices rose 9.6 percent year-on-year in January, the country's statistical authority announced on March 13.

"In the same month food, drinks and tobacco sales increased by 5.5 percent," TÜİK said.

Just 7 percent of enterprises, mainly small and medium-sized ones, saw their turnover go up in this year's winter sales, which formally ended last Saturday. Nevertheless, most of them are still providing special offers in a bid to get rid of their winter merchandize.

Retail commerce and consumers appear to have developed an addiction for promotional offers, as despite repeated promises by supermarket chains to scrap the practice, promotional activities do not only show no sign of abating but are also taking an ever-growing share of total turnover.

In February 2020, the total business climate indicator decreases by 0.8 percentage points compared to the previous month as a result of the more unfavourable business climate in retail trade and service sector, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said in a press release.

Confidence in Bulgarian online stores has increased over the past year, according to a survey by the largest hosting company, SuperHosting.BG. The number of platforms for online stores is also increasing.

Greece's retail food sector is showing signs of recovery during the current year, after a long period of crisis, according to Professor Georgios Doukidis, an advisor of the Research Institute of Retail Consumer Goods (IELKA), in comments to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency on Sunday.

Greek retail sales by volume rose 3.1 percent in November compared to the same month last year after an upwardly revised 7.2 percent rise in October, statistics service ELSTAT said on Friday.
Retail sales were led higher by pharmaceuticals and cosmetics as well as books and footwear, the data showed.

Leading supermarket chain Sklavenitis is entering the market of online commerce with the acquisition of the caremarket.gr website.

The retailer, that grew into the largest market player with the acquisition of defunct rival Marinopoulos in 2017-2018, has finally broken into the digital market of retailing with the acquisition of the online sales service from Yoda SA.