SberIndex: businesses tried to be more active than buyers during sales

According toSberIndex analysts, the dynamics of consumer spending did not show any improvement from November 23 to November 29, losing 11.4% y-o-y after falling by 9.0% y-o-y a week earlier. At the same time, the number of active outlets turned out to be the highest this year (+4.0% versus February) amid corporate attempts to participate in sales.

The decline, which accelerated by 2.4 pp compared to last week, has to do with Black Friday, SberIndex analysts believe. The sales were weak, as was expected, and their contribution to the spending decline amounted to some 2 pp.

Weaker spending is concentrated in the non-food retail sector (-9.0% y-o-y after -4.8% a week before), which is also mainly due to weak Black Friday. Driven by sales, the surge in demand was seen in all traditional categories, but the incremental spending was 40% lower than in 2019.

Compared to a regular Friday in November, buying added 20% this year against 48% a year earlier in the Home Appliances and Electronics category. In the Clothing, Footwear, and Accessories segment it added 18% against 25% in 2019.

The consumer activity index SberIndex.ru keeps track of is below 70 points (69.1), with consumers still hibernating.

In general, according to early estimates, consumer spending lost 9.9% y-o-y in November, which makes it a month with the third biggest decline in 2020, following April (-26.2%) and May (-16.8%).

When publishing the materials, a reference to SberIndex (www.sberindex.ru) is mandatory.

SberIndex.ru is an analytical website by Sberbank that illustrates how life in Russia has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, you can find three key indexes on the website, all of them based on anonymized data. These are an incidence model, the consumer activity index, and consumer activity changes. The all-new Business section features the evolution of gross payroll and change in small business activity. The website also has other studies, including all SberIndex lab ones (former SberData).