According to Confcommercio, in December, the total consumption in Italy increased by + 0.3%, if compared to November 2015, and by + 0.5% if compared to December 2015. Spending on clothing and footwear was stable when compared to November. However, on an annual basis, the consumption was reduced by 0.8%, continuing the downward trend already noted in November (-0.9%). No better situation registered France, where, according to the French Institute of Fashion (IFM), stores during the sales period recorded a – 4% in the clothing and textile sector when compared to 2015/2016 figures. Many retailers have noted that, in an unfavourable economic environment, there were too many promotions throughout the year that penalised the sale period. Conversely, online performed well. UK retail sales in January fell by 0.6%, while there was an increase in digital ones (+ 8%). (Still, online sale didn’t perform as good as January 2016 when they reached a + 14.9%). According to Paul Martin, head of retail at KPMG: “The cause might have been the cold weather that brought British to make purchases at home.” Martin added that “the sale online of shoes, however, has been slow and not very frequently it translated into a buy.” In Germany, the prices of shoes were up, but the purchase of leather shoes fell. According to the German price index, footwear purchase increased it was 0.5% while that of leather products fell 0.2%. According to the Consumer Price Index (which measures the value of retail prices based on the actual average expenditure of households in a weighted per product), the price per pair is up 0.7% when compared to the cost of living has increased by 0.5%.
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