Retail Sales YoY

Retail Sales YoY is the yearly change in Swiss retail turnover, published as Retail trade turnover by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO). It covers retail trade businesses under NOGA Division 47, the official classification for retail trade, using a monthly survey of about 3000 businesses. Results form an index with 2015 = 100, in nominal terms, meaning current prices, and real terms, meaning inflation-adjusted volume. The calendar-adjusted YoY headline tracks volume versus the prior year, so a positive rate means growth.

The Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO) releases one report for each reference month, about one month later, under embargo at 08:30 Swiss time. Turnover comes from a monthly survey of about 3000 businesses, with small firms reporting each month on a quarterly cycle. Each release shows nominal and real turnover as calendar-adjusted YoY rates and seasonally adjusted MoM rates.

The release splits food, drinks and tobacco, non-food and turnover excluding service stations, with commodity and business-size detail in unadjusted terms only. Detailed results for the current month follow with the next release, with first estimates for the following month. Results are provisional and the full series is recalculated each time. The Swiss National Bank and SECO receive the data five working days before publication.

Retail turnover nets opposing forces, so the headline can hide splits between daily needs, fuel and discretionary goods.

• Retail sector excluding service stations: core aggregate without volatile fuel sales.
• Food, drinks and tobacco: one of the two main goods splits.
• Non-food sector: the other main goods split, covering the specialised branches.
• Service stations: volatile fuel component, always shown separately.
• Other goods (clothing, chemists, watches and jewellery): publisher-listed subgroup of non-food.
• Market stalls, mail order and internet trade: non-store sales channel.

In June 2020 (release of July 31, 2020), the headline looked calm at +1.1% real and +0.4% nominal YoY on a calendar-adjusted basis. Real seasonally adjusted turnover fell 3.8% versus May 2020, so the YoY and the month-on-month pointed in opposite directions.

Food, drinks and tobacco rose 5.7% in real terms, while information equipment jumped 43.8% and internet trade rose 13.8%. Service stations fell 7.3% in real terms and 22.2% in nominal terms, while clothing, chemists, watches and jewellery fell 11.7% real. The release carried a pandemic notice that figures came from available data with greater uncertainty and possible correction.

1. Collect turnover: Monthly retail turnover comes from a random sample of about 3000 businesses, with small firms reporting each month on a quarterly cycle. Each firm is classified under NOGA Division 47, the official grouping for retail trade.
2. Build nominal index: Reported turnovers are aggregated into an index with 2015 = 100, where 100 equals average 2015 turnover.
3. Deflate to real index: Nominal values are divided by the Swiss Consumer Price Index, the inflation gauge, to give real volume. Illustrative example from the releases: nominal 101.1 divided by a price factor 0.993 gives real 101.8.
4. Calendar adjustment: A regression model weights weekdays for each series into monthly factors that correct sales-day and holiday effects.
5. Seasonal adjustment: Calendar-adjusted data are filtered by X12-ARIMA, the standard seasonal adjustment method, to remove seasonal patterns. The full series is recalculated with each release, so past adjusted values can revise.
6. Publish headline rates: Each release shows unadjusted, calendar-adjusted and seasonally adjusted series for YoY and MoM comparison. For example, real 101.8 versus 100.7 a year earlier equals about +1.1% YoY.