In the global retail industry, macroeconomic concerns continue to weigh on consumers, placing a heavy burden on retailers specialising in sales of discretionary goods. Even so, thanks to the skyrocketing popularity of online shopping and the growing affluence of consumers in Asia, global retail sales recorded positive, albeit subdued, growth in 2024. Future growth will be largely dependent on the continued expansion of e-commerce and the remarkable rise of the Asia Pacific retail sector.
This report comes in PPT.
After high inflation put a dent in global retail sales in 2022, the industry turned in its second year of subdued but positive growth in 2024, with sales posting a year-on-year increase of 1% at constant prices. With many Western markets still struggling through a cost-of-living crisis, the sales gains of 2024 were due largely to the more exuberant performance of the Asia Pacific retail sector.
With consumers around the world increasingly turning to digital channels such as marketplace e-commerce, social commerce and livestreaming e-commerce for their shopping needs, online retail sales are booming. In 2024, as offline sales declined slightly, e-commerce accounted for the equivalent of 136% of total global retail sales growth for the year.
Concerned about the macroeconomic outlook, consumers are searching for ways to ration their spending. Discount retail formats have been some of the most obvious beneficiaries of this development. In store-based retail, that means that channels such as warehouse clubs and discounters that can credibly offer competitive prices are far outperforming the rest of the market.
In 2024, the world’s largest retailers gobbled up a larger share of global sales than ever before. As the giants of the industry continue to leverage their scale and their deep pockets to add customers, smaller operators in the space are increasingly feeling the heat.
With storm clouds of macroeconomic and political uncertainty continuing to loom on the horizon, the outlook for the global retail industry is not particularly auspicious. Still, thanks largely to the remarkable expansion of e-commerce and the growing affluence of the Asia Pacific consumer base, total retail sales are projected to increase, albeit slowly, every year from 2024 to 2029.
Retail is the sale of new and used goods to consumers from a business for personal or household consumption from retail outlets, kiosks, market stalls, vending, direct selling and e-commerce. Retail is the aggregation of Retail Offline and Retail E-Commerce. Excludes specialist retailers of motor vehicles, motorcycles, vehicle parts. Also excludes fuel sales, foodservice sales, rental transactions, and wholesale sales (e.g. Cash and Carry). Sales value excluding or including VAT/Sales Tax. Retail also excludes the informal retail sector. Informal retailing is retail trade which is not declared to the tax authorities. Informal retailing encompasses (a) sales generated by unregistered and unlicensed retailers, i.e. retailers operating illegally, and (b) any proportion of sales generated by a registered and licensed retailer that is not declared to the tax authorities. Unregistered and unlicensed retailers operate predominantly (although not exclusively) as street hawkers or operate open market stalls, as these channels are harder for the authorities to monitor than permanent outlets. Activities in the illegal market, which is usually understood to refer to trade in illegal, counterfeit or stolen merchandise, are included within our definition of informal retailing. Activities in the “grey market”, which is usually understood to refer to trade in legal merchandise that is sold through unauthorized channels – for example cigarettes bought legally in another country, legally imported, but sold at lower prices than in authorized channels – will be included as informal retailing if no tax is paid on sale by the retailer. However if the retailer pays tax – for example on cigarettes bought legally in another country but sold at a lower price than standard – the sale is included within formal retail.
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