Strong increase in retail sales in April

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The seasonally-adjusted volume index of retail sales increased by 4.8 percent from March to April 2020. This follows a decrease of 0.9 percent from February to March. More time spent at home and a stop in foreign travels have affected the shopping pattern of the Norwegian people.

Written by: Marie Karoline Skjeldås / Anders Falla Aas

New figures from the retail sales index show a strong growth in the seasonal adjusted volume for April. The entire Easter month was affected by actions against the spreading of the Corona-virus with powerful travel restrictions and ban against most cultural and sporting events. The strong growth in retail trade suggest that Norwegians 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 April 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
April 2014 100.7 100.0
May 2014 99.9 100.2
June 2014 100.9 100.2
July 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
March 2015 100.9 100.7
April 2015 103.5 100.6
May 2015 98.7 100.5
June 2015 100.1 100.3
July 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
March 2016 99.0 99.6
April 2016 98.8 99.4
May 2016 99.9 99.4
June 2016 99.9 99.4
July 2016 99.1 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
March 2017 101.4 101.3
April 2017 101.1 101.5
May 2017 102.7 101.7
June 2017 102.5 101.7
July 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
March 2018 102.4 102.7
April 2018 102.9 102.7
May 2018 105.3 102.8
June 2018 102.1 102.7
July 2018 102.4 102.7
Aug. 2018 102.9 102.6
Sep. 2018 102.4 102.6
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
March 2019 102.4 102.6
April 2019 104.2 102.8
May 2019 102.9 102.9
June 2019 102.4 103.1
July 2019 103.2 103.2
Aug. 2019 103.3 103.1
Sep. 2019 103.3 103.0
Oct. 2019 102.3 102.8
Nov. 2019 103.5 102.8
Dec. 2019 101.1 102.8
Jan. 2020 101.7 102.9
Feb. 2020 103.6
March 2020 102.7
April 2020 107.6

Strong month for building materials and sports equipment

Many of the various retail sectors experienced growth in April. The largest contribution to the growth in the overall retail index was stores selling building materials, followed by stores selling sporting equipment and boats. Other sectors who experienced growth was clothing stores, flower shops, e-commerce and furniture shops.

On the other hand, there was a decline in sales volume for gas stations and pharmacies.

Seasonally-adjusted figures show that retail sales volume increased by 2.4 percent in February to April 2020, compared to November 2019 to January 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 April many stores fully or partially opened again. This has led to a change in the shopping pattern 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.

On the effect of Easter

It is important to be aware that the uncertainty for the calendar-adjusted and seasonally-adjusted indices for March and April is greater than normal due to the changing placing of Easter from year to year. This is accounted for when adjusting for seasonal variations. However, it can still be difficult to adjust for all impacts.

Response rate for April

Due to closed shops and layoffs the response rate for April is smaller than normally. The response rate for the sample part of the survey for April was 90 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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