Fürth (dpa / lby) - The Bavarian retail trade is suffering from customers' reluctance to buy and high inflation. Price-adjusted sales fell by 1.7 percent in the first three quarters of the year, as the State Statistics Office announced on Wednesday based on preliminary figures. In food retail, it even went down by 5.1 percent.
"The consumer mood is in the basement," said the managing director of the Bavarian trade association, Bernd Ohlmann. "Savings are being made everywhere, not only with larger purchases, but also with what is put on the table." Especially in the food retail sector, customers "are increasingly turning to cheaper products and private labels". And where three bottles of wine used to be bought, today there are often only two in the car. This is also clearly noticeable in organic shops, whose customers often resort to cheaper organic products from discounters.
The particularly strong decline in food retailing may also have been due to the fact that it had experienced strong growth during the Corona years, so that the comparative values are high. Even online trade, which had boomed in recent years, is feeling the effects of the reluctance to buy: Adjusted for price, it is down a significant 9.6 percent.
The declines are also noticeable in jobs, albeit only as a shift: employment in the food retail sector fell by 2.8 percent. Since the rest of the retail trade went up by 1.9 percent, it remained stable on the bottom line.
