The value of retail sales fell by 13.7% in March compared to February, the largest monthly decrease since January 2009, according to the Central Statistics Office. The collapse of motor sales accounted for most of the decline.

Some sectors did show increases and, unsurprisingly, supermarkets and corner shops were the big winners. The best-performing retail sectors in terms of month-on-month gains were:

• Convenience Stores and Off-licences +16.5%
• Supermarkets +13.3%.
• Hardware, paints  +12.1%
• Pharma, medical  +9.4%
• Electrical goods +6.3%.

And the worst performing:

• Bars -53.0%
• Clothing, footwear  -49.4%
• Motor trades -30.9%
• Books, newspapers -29.3%
• Department Stores: -26.5%

Online sales represented 4.3% of the total turnover for all businesses, the highest online share since November 2018, when such details began to be collated.  While overall sales in department stores fell by more than a quarter, the proportion of sales online more than doubled, from 4.3% in February to 10.1% in March.

Economist Alan McQuaid  noted that the lockdown process commenced in the middle of March, so worse is to come in the April data.

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McQuaid added that seasonally-adjusted figures, as provided by the CSO, are not appropriate in the circumstances as they tended to understate the extent of the decline. 

“Unadjusted data would highlight much better the stark decline in consumer spending for each sector during the crisis. As the late Charles Haughey once commented on the jobless numbers: ‘You cannot tell an unemployed person that, seasonally-adjusted, they’re working’.

“That said, even the adjusted numbers show steep falls in a number of sectors. The economic reality is that retailers are facing an unprecedented challenge in the months ahead, and unfortunately there will be many casualties, with a lot of businesses likely to go to the wall,” McQuaid said.

The full CSO Retail Sales Index for March is reported here.