Continued increase in retail sales in May

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The seasonally-adjusted volume index of retail sales increased by 2.8 percent from April to May 2020. This follows an increase of 4.8 percent from March to April.

Written by: Marie Karoline Skjeldås / Anders Falla Aas

New figures from the retail trade index show a solid growth in the seasonal adjusted volume for May. This follows a particularly strong April month. The strong growth in retail trade suggest that Norwegians in the last couple of months have changed their consumption pattern in the direction of spending less on services, and more on certain retail goods. These changes in the shopping pattern of the Norwegian people have had a strong effect on the seasonally adjusted figures.  

Due to the treatment of March and following months as extreme values, the trend for the recent months is not representable for the actual development in retail sales. The trend for the most recent months has therefore been excluded from the figure. For more information on this, see the information box at the bottom of the article.

Figure 1. Retail sales volume index, seasonally adjusted and trend. 2015=100

Seasonally adjusted Trend
May. 2014 99.9 100.2
Jun. 2014 100.9 100.2
Jul. 2014 99.0 100.2
Aug. 2014 99.9 100.2
Sep. 2014 100.3 100.2
Oct. 2014 100.1 100.2
Nov. 2014 99.9 100.2
Dec. 2014 100.8 100.4
Jan. 2015 100.0 100.5
Feb. 2015 100.8 100.6
Mar. 2015 100.9 100.7
Apr. 2015 103.5 100.6
May. 2015 98.8 100.5
Jun. 2015 100.1 100.3
Jul. 2015 100.4 100.3
Aug. 2015 100.9 100.3
Sep. 2015 100.1 100.3
Oct. 2015 100.8 100.4
Nov. 2015 100.3 100.4
Dec. 2015 100.2 100.3
Jan. 2016 100.8 100.1
Feb. 2016 99.8 99.8
Mar. 2016 99.0 99.6
Apr. 2016 98.8 99.4
May. 2016 99.9 99.3
Jun. 2016 99.9 99.4
Jul. 2016 99.0 99.5
Aug. 2016 99.6 99.7
Sep. 2016 99.8 99.9
Oct. 2016 100.9 100.1
Nov. 2016 100.2 100.3
Dec. 2016 98.3 100.5
Jan. 2017 100.2 100.8
Feb. 2017 101.3 101.0
Mar. 2017 101.3 101.3
Apr. 2017 101.1 101.5
May. 2017 102.7 101.7
Jun. 2017 102.5 101.7
Jul. 2017 102.3 101.7
Aug. 2017 101.9 101.7
Sep. 2017 101.2 101.8
Oct. 2017 101.6 101.9
Nov. 2017 102.9 102.1
Dec. 2017 102.6 102.3
Jan. 2018 102.0 102.5
Feb. 2018 102.5 102.6
Mar. 2018 102.4 102.7
Apr. 2018 102.9 102.7
May. 2018 105.3 102.8
Jun. 2018 102.1 102.7
Jul. 2018 102.4 102.7
Aug. 2018 102.9 102.6
Sep. 2018 102.3 102.6
Oct. 2018 102.3 102.5
Nov. 2018 102.9 102.5
Dec. 2018 101.7 102.5
Jan. 2019 103.3 102.5
Feb. 2019 101.5 102.5
Mar. 2019 102.4 102.6
Apr. 2019 104.2 102.8
May. 2019 102.9 102.9
Jun. 2019 102.4 103.1
Jul. 2019 103.2 103.2
Aug. 2019 103.2 103.1
Sep. 2019 103.3 103.0
Oct. 2019 102.4 102.8
Nov. 2019 103.5 102.7
Dec. 2019 101.1 102.8
Jan. 2020 101.7 102.9
Feb. 2020 103.6 103.1
Mar. 2020 102.5
Apr. 2020 107.4
May. 2020 110.4

Strong month for clothing stores and sports equipment

Many of the various retail sectors experienced growth in May, and some particularly stood out. The largest contribution to the growth in the overall retail index was clothing stores, followed by stores selling sporting equipment and boats. Other sectors that experienced growth were furniture shops, stores selling optical articles and gas stations.  

On the other hand, there was a decline in sales volume for grocery shops and e-commerce.

Seasonally-adjusted figures show that retail sales volume increased by 4.6 percent in March to May 2020, compared to December 2019 to February 2020.

The seasonal adjustment routine has been adjusted during the Corona-crisis

Thursday 12th of March 2020 the Norwegian government introduced actions against the spreading of the Corona-virus in Norway. After these actions were put in motion many shops decided to temporarily close down or reduce their opening hours. In May most shops have been opened again. This has led to a change in the shopping pattern since March compared to what we usually observe. The seasonal adjustment routine during the Corona- crisis is done in such a way that the figures from the start of and during the crisis (from March), are not included in the calculation of the seasonal pattern. Technically, in the seasonal adjustment routine, this is done by specifying March and following months as outliers.

This means that the usual trend figures will not be calculated, and instead the trend and seasonal adjusted figures will follow each other.  One important exception is the last observation, where the trend figure which is calculated in the seasonal adjusted routine will only be a projected value and the last observation is therefore not included. The trend figures from March 2020 and the following moths will therefore be difficult to interpret.

The seasonal adjustment routine of Statics Norway is in line with the recommendations of Eurostat.

Correction in figures for March and April

The value index for March and April has been revised due to new information from a larger contributor in the sector “Retail sale of automotive fuel in specialized stores”. This has led to a downward adjustment of the value index in March and April. This revision also affects the unadjusted and seasonal adjusted volume index, and calendar adjusted figures for volume and value.

Response rate for May

Due to closed shops and layoffs the response rate for May is smaller than normally. The response rate for the sample part of the survey for May was 92 percent, compared to 96 percent on average in 2019. This also causes the figures to be more uncertain. At the same time Statistics Norway receives data from the biggest retail chains in Norway. The response rate for this part of the survey was 99 percent – about the same as the average in 2019.

Differences between the volume index of retail sales and the index of household consumption of goods

The volume index of retail sales (DOI) is one of the central sources in the calculation of the index of household consumption of goods (VKI). There are still usually differences in the development of these two indices, and there are several reasons for this. VKI covers the households’ consumption of electricity and heating fuel, and the purchases of vehicles. This is not included in DOI. The two indices are also weighted differently. The difference in weighting has a particular big effect when there are large differences between the different industries of the retail sector. The reason behind the difference in weighting between DOI and VKI is that VKI is a measure of the household consumption of goods, while DOI describes the development in the retail sector.

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