March shop sales, the worst for two years

RETAILERS on Majorca have assessed March this year as being the worst month in terms of income and number of clients since March of 2009, the island's small to medium-sized business association Pimeco reported yesterday.

In Pimeco's monthly report on the retail industry, traders apparently gave March only 3.8 on a scale of 10, and said that trading had declined by two decimal points since the previous month of February, when ratings were 4 out of 10.

Even worse, figures for March this year were 9 decimal points below the average for the last 12 months (4.7).

Pimeco's findings were based on surveys taken amongst traditional clothes, shoes and accessories retailers around Majorca. Research showed that results for March this year were 24 percent down on the same month in 2010. Pimeco pointed out however, that unlike 2010, March this year did not include the Easter period when sales normally increase.

Making a direct comparison between March this year and the same month in 2010, Pimeco's report showed that only 3 percent of Majorca's retailers said that they had done better this year than last, 83 percent said that trade had worsened and 14 percent claimed there had been no change.

In Palma, only 1 trader in 50 (2 percent) believed that business had been better this March than last, 14 percent said trade had “remained the same,” whilst 84 percent were quite sure that income had declined.

Pimeco's research also made a comparison between March retail industry results this year and the previous month of February. Around 9 percent of retailers said their March figures were better than for February, 15 percent said there had been no difference, but 3 out of every 4 (76 percent) were confident that sales had gone down even further in March.

Pimeco said in the conclusion to its report that the results for March showed that there had been a fresh surge of people buying as little as possible from traditional Majorcan retail businesses.

Shoppers are “tightening their belts” against what the economic recession has forced them to perceive as all unnecessary purchases, a spokesman for Pimeco said yesterday.

He furthered that the results of the survey suggest that the public is still uncertain about their personal financing, doubts which have been fuelled in the Balearic Islands by poor forecasts for economic growth.