In February this year, retail sales in Italy increased by 0.4% in value and by 0.9% in volume compared to the previous month of 2018. This is what latest Istat data show. Sales of food products are slightly better (+0.4% in value and +1.2% in volume) than those of non-food products (+0.3% in value and +0.7% in volume). However, in the quarter from December 2017 to February 2018, the overall sales index fell cyclically by 0.7% in both value and volume terms. Sales of both food (-0.8% in value and -0.9% in volume) and non-food (-0.6 in value and volume) decreased over the same period.
Values and volumes
Compared to February 2017, total retail sales in Italy decreased by 0.6% in value while volume remained stable. On the other hand, the value of food sales was unchanged, while the volume increases by 0.9%. Sales of non-food products fell in both value and volume (-1.1% and -0.6% respectively). On a trend basis, the value of retail sales did not change for large-scale retailers, while it was down for small businesses (-1.7%).