The majority of merchants express satisfaction with the purchasing movement in this year’s Easter period, which approached the pre-pandemic levels, sharing optimism in businesses despite the unfavorable environment.

According to what Makis Savvidis, vice-president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and vice-president of GRECA, pointed out, the turnout of consumers was very high both in the central and regional markets, giving commercial enterprises a little breather in an extremely difficult period. According to him, the market moved better than the corresponding period last year, while compared to 2019 it moved at the same levels.

“The Easter festive season, despite its short duration and high food prices, is estimated to have exceeded the purchasing activity of previous years,” the president of the Piraeus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Vassilis Korkidis, recently stated in his statements, adding that “the turnover of Easter, which will be reflected in the statistics of May, it is certain that it will surpass last year’s 1.5 billion euros by a double-digit percentage”.

Furthermore, Mr. Korkidis underlined that, despite the initial misgivings about limited consumption due to punctuality, the traffic was increased both in food markets and in commercial stores. “In most of the central commercial markets of the regions of Attica, sales were improved and the average number of visitors to the shops significantly increased. The parents and godparents, like every year and this year as well, in every possible way responded to their family and social obligations in a dignified way, buying the traditional Easter gifts at their baptismal schools. The “Easter” and the “godfather’s basket” did their job, since they worked preventively to hold down prices,” he emphasized.

Inflationary pressures are problematic

At the same time, inflationary pressures and increased costs continue, according to Mr. Savvidis, to trouble the commercial world which sees the reduced disposable income of consumers increasingly being used up in supermarkets to buy basic food items. “A large part of income is consumed in supermarkets while for the eighth month in a row the prices of products are rising above inflation. Consumers, in an unfavorable environment, are suffocating, while filling their basket with fewer and cheaper products, choosing based on price and not quality. Even the 9% increase made in the minimum wage has been absorbed by the increase in the prices of basic necessities” emphasized Mr. Savvidis and added: “in the next period, if the prices of the products do not start to decrease, the situation will not it is manageable in the market and especially in supermarkets”.

Research carried out last March by the Athens Chamber of Commerce showed, according to Mr. Savvidis, the most important issues that have been indicated by the commercial world and which are a brake on the further development of the sector. These concern political stability and the financing of mainly small and medium enterprises. In particular, as he clarified, the upcoming elections are estimated to affect the consumer movement in the market as well as the psychology of consumers, once again testing the endurance of businesses. At the same time, traders who are the core of small and medium entrepreneurship, are concerned about the non-existent financing from the banking system which continues to threaten the survival of businesses.

With a positive sign, the Easter online shopping

Regarding online shopping, Mr. Savvidis pointed out that they exceeded all expectations during this year’s Easter holiday season. “E-commerce continues to occupy an increasingly large percentage of sales while the competition intensifies with European companies seeking to operate in the country” he said characteristically. According to him, the upward use of e-commerce and the internet in general in Greece continues, while one in five Greek commercial enterprises (percentage of 20%) have an electronic channel, that is, 90% are an extension of a physical store.

But how did the online purchases of Greek consumers shape up at Easter? Skroutz recorded the purchasing behavior of consumers in online markets during the period 1-16/4/2023 compared to the corresponding period last year 9-24/4/2022. According to the data collected, the generated turnover of the stores in Skroutz Marketplace for the considered period of 2023 marked an increase of 12.76% compared to the corresponding period of 2022. The average price of the consumer’s basket also increased, reaching almost 60 euros (16.65% increase compared to last year).

At the same time, the number of orders, reaching 40.52% compared to 2022, made through Skroutz during the period under review also increased significantly, which outlines the tendency of consumers to turn more and more towards online shopping. Data for on-the-go shopping shows that more and more consumers are trusting in-app shopping. More specifically, the increase in visits to the skroutz app with a percentage of 67% is remarkable, while visits to the website remained at the same levels as last year’s Easter period.

White appliances monopolized consumer interest and showed the highest sales growth. According to Skroutz, the list of top 10 categories includes: washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, stoves & ovens, kitchen ranges, home inverter air conditioners, TVs, kitchen hoods, processors and RAMs. In fact, the “washing machines” category saw the biggest increase compared to 2022, reaching almost 800%.

The largest online shopping movement occurred on Monday, April 3, a week exactly before Holy Week, which demonstrates that last-minute shopping is also becoming an online habit. Finally, more than 2,000 orders were placed with Skroutz’s “Buy Now, Pay Later” program, with the average order reaching 400 euros, while consumers who chose Google Pay as a payment method made purchases worth 45 euros on average.