The German Retail Association (HDE) recognized a “slight upward trend” in the Christmas business in the week before the second Advent. Nevertheless, the mood in German retail remains mixed overall, the HDE explained on Sunday. The association referred to the results of a current survey among “around 400 dealers from all sectors, locations and size classes”.
In view of the findings, HDE General Manager Stephan Genth drew a mixed conclusion about the development in the past few days: “In the past week, there was a little more momentum in the Christmas business in many places. However, customer frequency mostly fell short of expectations,” he explained in a statement.
HDE sees “still room for improvement” for the last few weeks of the year
After all, according to the association, according to the latest survey, “compared to the previous week, significantly fewer companies were dissatisfied with the course of business”. The mood brightened, especially in certain sectors: “In particular, larger retail companies were doing better than average compared to the rest of the industry. This also applies to around a third of the inner-city retailers, including many clothing retailers, ”explained the HDE.
After the first two weeks of Advent, however, “there is still room for improvement for this year’s Christmas business,” admitted General Manager Genth, blaming the unfavorable general conditions for this. “Customers are still very cautious, the general uncertain situation with high energy prices is still dampening the mood considerably,” he explained. In any case, “only one in five companies is satisfied with the course of the Christmas business so far,” explained the association.
The HDE again confirmed its forecast for the entire Christmas business published in mid-November. Accordingly, the German retail trade can expect total sales of 120.3 billion euros in November and December. That would correspond to nominal growth of 5.4 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. In real terms, i.e. adjusted for the effects of price developments, sales would fall short of the previous year’s level by 4.0 percent.