Strong weekend for home-furnishing retail

Wpis dostępny jest także w języku: polski

The pent-up demand combined with Black Friday brought about a shopping craze on day one of the shopping centre reopening in Poland, analysts from Pekao and PKO BP banks reported. Saturday’s data augur well for the retail sales results in December, they comment.

Saturday the 28th of November, was the first day when non-essential stores in shopping malls in Poland were allowed to reopen after a three weeks’ lockdown. Restrictions were also lifted from large-format stores (for instance furniture and sports stores).

A record Saturday in the home-furnishing retail

According to Pekao’s card data, consumer spending on furniture and household appliances was by far the highest this year last Saturday. No other day could match it. Hoping to keep up the consumer’s interest, some furniture chains have extended their Black Friday promotions (i.e. in Jysk until Sunday the 6th of December. According to a recently passed amendment to the emergency COVID-19 legislation, shops are allowed to open on the upcoming Sunday.

June jumps in interior stores

In turn, data from payment cards of PKO BP’s customers suggest that the day was exceptionally good, although so far the peak of this year’s sales in furniture and interior design stores was in June.

The good results in June are also consistent with the data of the Retail Institute, collected on a sample of 140 shopping centers. According to figures from Retail Institute, already in June 2020, home furnishings and DIY, tenant sales grew by 11%, year on year with an overall drop of 15% y/y in shopping center tenant sales. At that time, only consumer electronics grew faster (24%), and these were the only two segments with positive sales dynamics in June. These results can easily be linked to the increased need to arrange places to work and study this year.

Source: Peako, PKO_Research, 2020