Retail trade

The retail trade index measures the monthly evolution of the turnover at current prices of enterprises with retail sale outlets. With effect from January 2013 the indices are calculated with reference to the base year 2010 using the Ateco 2007 classification (Italian edition of Nace Rev. 2).

The value of retail trade decreased by 0.3% in August 2017 compared with the previous month (-0.4% for both food goods and non-food goods) and decreased by 0.5% compared with August 2016 (+0.8% for food goods and -1.5% for non-food goods).

Despite short-term variability, the underlying pattern in retail trade remains flat as in the three months to August 2017 the value is estimated to have decreased by 0.1, whilst the volume is estimated to have increased by 0.1.

The volume of retail trade decreased by 0.4% compared with July 2017 (-0.4% for food goods and  -0.5% for non-food goods) and decreased by 1.0% from the same month a year earlier (0.
0% for food goods and -1.8% for non-food goods).

Looking at year on year movement (August 2016 – August 2017), retail trade sales were up 1.4% in large scale distribution and down 2.4% in small scale distribution.