Chart of the day: Department store sales crashed 84.6% YoY in April

The shutting of retail stores during the circuit breaker period dragged sales.

This chart from UOB shows the decline in retail sales across sectors with the departmental stores greatly affected, crashing 84.6% YoY in April. This comes as retail stores shuttered due to the circuit breaker measures.

Meanwhile, sales of consumer discretionary items such as watches and jewellery fell 87.8% YoY, wearing apparel and footwear plunged 85.3%, whilst optical goods and books as well as recreational goods plummeted 64.5%YoY and 63.4% YoY, respectively, over the same period.

Social-distancing measures and the rise of telecommuting also dragged motor vehicle sales and sales by petrol service stations by 77% YoY and 47.7% YoY, respectively.

However, despite the fall in retail sales, not all retail clusters were equally affected, with online sales as a share of total retail sales surged 17.8% that translated to a record increase of 96.2% YoY in online retail sales for April.

Sectors that had benefited from online sales included those in the computer and telecommunication equipment cluster followed by furniture amd household equipment (50.4%), food and beverages (39.2%) and supermarkets and hypermarkets (7.7%). The demand for necessities also surged as seen in the rise of sales by supermarkets which grew 74.6% YoY and provision and sundry shops which advanced 10.7% YoY.