{"id":688935,"date":"2023-05-18T10:15:11","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T08:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=688935"},"modified":"2023-05-18T13:56:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T11:56:33","slug":"south-africas-rotten-retail-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/688935\/south-africas-rotten-retail-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s rotten retail sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) says retail sales decreased by 1.6% year-on-year in March 2023.<\/p>\n

Stats SA’s information is based upon a monthly survey, which uses a sample from Stats SA\u2019s 2022 business sampling frame (BSF) that contains businesses registered for value-added tax (VAT).<\/p>\n

The main contributors to the decrease were general dealers (-1.9% and contributing -0.9 of a percentage point) and retailers in food, beverages and tobacco in specialised stores (-6.6% and contributing -0.6 of a percentage point).<\/p>\n

However, retailers in textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods were positive contributors (6.3% and contributing 1.0 percentage points).<\/p>\n

Retail trade sales for the three months that ended March 2023 are below:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Seasonally adjusted retail trade sales dropped by 0.7% in March from February’s -0.7% – adjusted downwards from -0.5%.<\/p>\n

The decline follows a 0.3% decline in February and a 1.4% drop in January 2023.<\/p>\n

Retail trade sales dropped by 1.0% in Q1 2023 compared to Q1 2022.<\/p>\n

The largest contributors to the drop were retailers in hardware, paint and glass (-5.7% and contributing -0.5 of a percentage point), general dealers (-1.0% and contributing -0.4 of a percentage point); and retailers in food, beverages and tobacco in specialised stores (-4.8% and contributing -0.4 of a percentage point).<\/p>\n

However, retailers in textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods were again positive contributors to the total (4.7% and contributing 0.8 of a percentage point).<\/p>\n

Retail trade sales for the three months that ended March 2023 are below:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That being said, seasonally adjusted retail sales did increase by 0,8% in Q1 2023 compared to Q4 2022.<\/p>\n

Retailers in textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods led the positive contribution (4.4% and contributing 0.8 of a percentage point).<\/p>\n

Below are the seasonally adjusted retail trade sales for the latest quarter:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Opposing commentary\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The retail stats are in stark contrast with the data and commentary from industry experts.<\/p>\n

Octodec<\/a>\u2019s, a leading real estate investment trust company, latest interim results show that its retail environment is still strong.<\/p>\n

Octodec said that several renewals of commercial leases are currently being finalised, with demand remaining strong across Gauteng.<\/p>\n

It said that its retail shopping centre had core vacancies running between 0.1% and 6.4%.<\/p>\n

The overall rental retail income it received also jumped by 3.6% on a like-for-like basis.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Clur, an asset management company, reported that trading density and growth for South African shopping centres in 2022 was at its highest level for four years.<\/p>\n

In addition, the group said that the retail property sector remains resilient due to strong and new leasing activity.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: One of the biggest malls in South Africa is up for sale<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retail sales in South Africa continue to decline. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":688949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-688935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688935"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689289,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688935\/revisions\/689289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}