The turnover growth of retail trade enterprises decelerated even more in March

In March 2016, the turnover of retail trade enterprises was 494 million euros.

The turnover of stores selling manufactured goods increased 6% compared to March 2015. Turnover increased in most economic activities. Only the turnover in non-specialized stores selling predominantly industrial goods (e.g. department stores) was smaller than in March of the previous year. Turnover increased the most in stores selling pharmaceutical goods and cosmetics (22% growth) and via mail order or the Internet (20% growth).

The turnover in grocery stores increased 1% compared to March 2015.

The turnover of enterprises engaging in the retail sales of automotive fuel, which showed a fall in February, turned upwards again in March and increased 2% at constant prices compared to March of the previous year.

Compared to the previous month, in March, the turnover of retail trade enterprises increased 12% at constant prices. According to the seasonally and working-day adjusted data, the turnover decreased 1% compared to the previous month. In the three months of 2016 (January–March), the turnover in retail trade enterprises increased 5.5% at constant prices compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

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 four working days.