Press Statement

Preasráiteas

28 July 2021

Go to release: Retail Sales Index June 2021

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (28 July 2021) released the Retail Sales Index June 2021 (Provisional).

Commenting on the release, Stephanie Kelleher, Statistician, said: "Retail sales increased by 3.3% in June 2021 when compared to May 2021 and were 10.6% higher than in June 2020. The retail sales figure for June 2021 was 13.4% higher when compared to two years earlier pre-COVID-19 (June 2019).

The sector with the highest monthly and annual volume increases was Bars (+553% compared to May 2021 and +184% compared to June of last year). Extreme caution should be exercised when interpreting these changes, as the comparison is with a low base. Last year bars serving food could open on the 29 June 2020 while this year bars were allowed serve customers outdoors for the entire month. Other sectors that saw significant annual increases were Books, Newspapers & Stationery (+46.8%), Clothing, Footwear & Textiles (+42.6%), and Department Stores (+37.7%). When interpreting the data, it should be noted that last year non-essential retail premises with their own on-street access could re-open on 08 June 2020 and Shopping Centres could only re-open on 15 June 2020.”

Providing further analysis of the figures, Stephanie Kelleher said: "To help our users interpret the annual increases, we have included Table 3a and Figure 3a in the Retail Sales release. These compare the annual percentage changes and the two year percentage changes between June 2019 (pre-COVID-19) and June 2021. Three sectors showed decreases on their June 2019 volume of sales, Bars (-48.0%), Books, Newspapers & Stationery (-10.7%) and Fuel (-4.4%). All other sectors showed an increase in sales since June 2019. The highest increases were seen in Other Retail Sales (+33.8%) and Hardware, Paints & Glass (+28.1%).

As the level of instore shopping increases, the proportion of retail sales transacted online continues to fall. The proportion of online sales (from Irish registered enterprises) was 5.0% in June 2021, down from 5.6% of all retail sales in May 2021 and from 6.7% in June of last year"

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