David Darmanin Despite a last minute spree that saved the day for many shop owners on Christmas Eve, GRTU Director-General Vince Farrugia yesterday confirmed that the retail sector suffered a blow of “around 25% decline over last year”.
Farrugia was compiling a detailed report to outline the findings of a survey carried out by the chamber of small enterprises, due for completion today.
“Certain sectors registered a drop of 30 to 35%, especially in those markets were competition is rife,” he said. “Midrange clothing brands and run-of-the-mill household and gift products suffered, but strangely enough quality brands did well.”
Farrugia attributes the bad start to this Christmas to the government’s announcement of yet another price hike in utility tariffs. “But in the end, when people started hearing Christmas carols in the streets, they realised that Christmas was near and they went crazy (taghhom estru).”
Although mainstream outlets witnessed an increase in sales on Christmas Eve, Farrugia said that most of those who did well on the day started offering discounts prior to Christmas, “whereas those that sell exclusive and high quality brands – such as designer label clothing, did not have to come up with any sales or offers and still fared well.”
Farrugia explained that home entertainment is on the increase, with specialised gourmet products selling fast.
“Many specialised food products are relatively new to the market, and the trend we saw starting last year with people entertaining at home has definitely increased this year, leading to the improvement in sales of up-market food items such as fowl and game.”
Furthermore, quality household giftware, such as wine tools and up-market decorative items also proved to be popular. “There has been an upsurge in sales of high quality wines and spirits this year,” he said.
“All in all, in the last days, high-end products fared better than expected. People browsed a lot and decided to opt for the purchase of a smaller number of products but that are of better quality.”
Still, the figures the GRTU have at hand strongly signalled lower per capita expenditure, “and this reflects the general state of the economy”.
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