Retail sales fell in June as fewer shoppers spent money on clothing and footwear, new data from the Central Statistics Office showed.
The headline retail sales index was down 1.4 per cent in the month and 1.8 per cent compared to June 2023. The worst hit sectors were clothing, footwear and textiles, which declined almost 10 per cent month-on-month, and 6 per cent compared with 2023 figures.
Books and stationery were 5.5 per cent lower compared with May, while pubs saw a 3.5 per cent decline. That was partly offset by a 5.3 per cent rise in the volume of sales of hardware, while the sale of electrical goods grew 2 per cent.
Annual figures also pointed to a 3.6 per cent fall-off in department store sales, while the sale of electrical goods rose almost 13 per cent. Hardware, paints and glass was also up, by 2.1 per cent, while fuel sales rose 0.3 per cent.
When the motor trade was excluded, retail sales volumes were 0.4 per cent lower in June, and 2 per cent down on last year’s figures.
The value of sales also declined month-on-month, falling 1.4 per cent, while the annual figures showed a 0.2 per cent rise. Excluding the motor trade those figures indicated a 1.8 per cent decline on the month, and a fall of 0.7 per cent year-on-year.
Online sales accounted for almost 5 per cent of retail sales from Irish-registered companies, at 4.9 per cent in June compared with 4.8 per cent in May, and 5.8 per cent a year earlier. That continues a recent downward trend seen in the proportion of online sales; in April the figure stood at 5.6 per cent. This could indicate that shoppers were returning to the in-store experience following a bump in popularity for shopping online fuelled by the pandemic.
The CSO figures follow inflation data that showed inflation remained stable in July, although recent figures from Kantar Worldpanel indicated a rise in grocery price inflation over the seven weeks to July 12th, the first time in nearly 15 months.
- Sign up for Business push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Our Inside Business podcast is published weekly – Find the latest episode here
