18 Aug 2023 at 00:01
Retail sales continue to decline. For five quarters in a row we have been buying less than in the same period a year earlier. Due to price increases, turnover for many stores is still reasonably stable.
This is evident from figures from Statistics Netherlands on the retail sector. In the second quarter, we bought 4 percent fewer items than one year previously. Supermarkets, clothing stores and electronics stores, among others, see that customers are buying less and less.
Nevertheless, stores are still seeing their revenues increase. This is because they charge higher prices than before. In the second quarter, the turnover of the entire retail sector was therefore 6 percent higher than last year.
The fact that shops have more turnover does not mean that they also make more profit. If retailers have higher costs, for example for wages, rents and energy, this can immediately cancel out the higher revenues.
The figures also show that fewer retailers went bankrupt in the second quarter than in the previous quarter. Between the beginning of April and the end of June, 59 shops went bankrupt, compared to 86 a quarter earlier. This while the total number of bankruptcies in the Netherlands rose.
Beeld: Getty Images
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Economy
2023-08-17 22:01:05
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