Sales Increase by 1.3% in Real Terms and 2.7% in Nominal Terms Compared to 2023
The German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reported on Wednesday that, in real terms, the retail trade in Germany had a 1.3% increase in sales in 2024, and in nominal terms, a 2.7% increase compared to the previous year.
After a decline of 0.4% in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year, the real sales in the retail trade experienced a growth of approximately 3.0% in the second half of the year.
In comparison to 2021, when the German retail trade recorded the highest sales since the beginning of the time series in 1994, the real annual sales in 2024 were expected to be 2.7% lower.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the retail trade, driven in part by the internet and mail-order trade, had a significant real increase in sales of 4.8% compared to the previous year, and in 2021, the sales even rose by a further 0.6%. In contrast, the real sales development in the years 2022 and 2023 was negative due to high price increases (-0.7% and -3.3%). Nevertheless, the real sales in 2024 were expected to be 2.6% above the pre-pandemic level of 2019.
In the past years, a part of the pre-Christmas business has shifted to the days around the “Black Friday” or “Cyber Monday”, mainly in the internet and mail-order trade, and has increasingly taken place in November. In November 2024, retail companies, according to preliminary results, had a real increase of 2.5% and a nominal increase of 3.5% in calendar and seasonally adjusted sales compared to November 2023. In the month-over-month comparison, the calendar and seasonally adjusted sales in November 2024 decreased by 0.6% both in real and nominal terms compared to October 2024.
In the retail trade with food, the calendar and seasonally adjusted sales in November increased by 1.7% in real terms and 4.1% in nominal terms compared to the same month in the previous year. Already in October, the sales in the food retail trade had increased by 1.2% in real terms and 3.8% in nominal terms compared to the same month in the previous year.
After the sales from January to September 2024 had only slightly exceeded those of the previous year (real +0.3%), the sales development in the retail trade with food then showed a significant increase at the end of the year. In the month-over-month comparison, the sales in November only rose by 0.1% in real terms and 0.2% in nominal terms compared to October.
A similar development can be seen in the retail trade with non-food products. Here, the calendar and seasonally adjusted sales in November 2024 increased by 2.3% in real terms and 2.5% in nominal terms compared to the same month in the previous year, according to the statisticians. Already in September and October, the real sales had experienced a significant increase compared to the respective previous years (+7.8% and +2.3%), after the sales from January to August had been 0.7% below those of the previous year.
In the month-over-month comparison, the real sales in the retail trade with non-food products in November 2024 decreased by 1.8% in real terms and 1.7% in nominal terms compared to October. This development was driven by the internet and mail-order trade, which in November recorded a real sales increase of 9.7% compared to the same month in the previous year, but a real calendar and seasonally adjusted sales decline of 1.2% compared to October 2024.