In February, the turnover growth of retail trade enterprises decelerated to some extent

In February 2016, the turnover of retail trade enterprises was 437.4 million euros.

The turnover of stores selling manufactured goods increased 10% compared to February 2015. Turnover increased in all economic activities. Turnover increased the most in stores selling pharmaceutical goods and cosmetics, where sales increased by a fifth compared to the same month of the previous year. A higher than average increase in turnover occurred in stores selling second-hand goods and in non-store retail sale (stalls, markets, direct sale) (15% growth), in stores selling household goods and appliances, hardware and building materials (13% growth) and sale via mail order or the Internet (11% growth).

The turnover in grocery stores increased 7% compared February 2015.

The turnover of enterprises engaging in the retail sales of automotive fuel, which showed a strong growth in January, turned to a fall in February and decreased 8% at constant prices compared to February of the previous year.

Compared to the previous month, in February, the turnover of retail trade enterprises decreased 9% at constant prices. According to the seasonally and working-day adjusted data, the decrease was 3%.

In 2016, Statistics Estonia started to use only the VAT declaration data of the Estonian Tax and Customs Board and stopped data collection with the questionnaire “Turnover”. This will reduce the response burden of entrepreneurs and Statistics Estonia’s expenditure on data collection, and increase the use of administrative data. Due to the change in the data source, the monthly news release “Retail trade” will focus on the turnover of retail trade enterprises, instead of the retail sales of such enterprises. Statistics Estonia will continue publishing the retail sales indicator of retail trade enterprises on a quarterly and yearly basis. Statistics Estonia published the monthly summary in three working days.