Retail

Turkey's retail sales volume with constant prices fell 0.8% year-on-year in June, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announced on Aug. 14. 

"In the same month food, drinks and tobacco sales increased by 3.0%," TÜİK said.

Excluding automotive fuel, non-food sales dropped 2.8%, while automotive fuel sales slipped 0.9% over the same period.

Supermarkets are expected to post 5.3% growth in turnover this year, as any losses in the second half from the expected contraction of the economy will have been offset by the jump in demand as soon as the first case of the coronavirus was recorded in Greece.

Greece's three main supermarket chains, Sklavenitis, AB Vassilopoulos and MyMarket, appear to be the biggest winners from the massive rise in turnover in organized food retail. However, small retailers, minimarkets and grocers were among the winners, demonstrating quick reflexes in response to the new needs created by the coronavirus lockdown.

E-commerce, which has shown a tendency to grow before the COVID-19 that swept the world, experienced a sharp rise in the first two months of the outbreak and the pandemic accelerated the transformation of e-commerce according to Nielsen Turkey CEO Didem Şekerel Erdoğan.

What are the reflections of the COVID-19 pandemic in the food retail industry?

Digitally upgrading an enterprise can fetch up to 20% more sales compared to its rivals that have not created an online store or made other such moves toward an electronic transformation, according to a report by the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV).

Romanian managers estimate for the next three months a relative stability of activity in construction and retail trade, a moderate decrease in the number of employees in construction, retail trade and services as well as price raises, according to the findings of a trend survey published on Thursday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

The Health Ministry has announced a series of measures to be taken in 11 sectors in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus as Turkey has already rolled out its normalization plan.

The new measures are mostly directed at retail stores, such as white goods shops, supermarkets, gas stations, and real estate agencies.

As the food service sector reopened for business this week following over two months with its shutters down, a consumer survey found that two-thirds of consumers do not intend to visit any restaurants this year, while almost a third of Greeks will not be going on holiday this year.

One in four stores in Athens recorded a decline in turnover of more than 50% in the first week after the lockdown compared to the same week last year, while a total of 82.8% of stores reported worse turnover compared to a year earlier, according to a survey of 204 stores by the Athens Traders Association, most of which are in the center of Athens.

In the 10 weeks up to May 3 - i.e. from the time the first coronavirus cases were announced in Greece up to just before the end of the lockdown - turnover at supermarkets in Greece reached a remarkable 1.5 billion euros.