Most sellers are pleased with this year’s Easter buying spree, which is approaching pre-pandemic levels, sharing the optimism in business despite the unfavorable market conditions. According to Makis Savvydis, Vice President of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Vice President of GRECA, in a conversation with the Athens Macedonian News Agency, consumer turnout was very high in both the central and regional markets, giving businesses a bit of a break during an extremely difficult period. . According to him, the market moved better than in the corresponding period last year, while compared to 2019, it moved at the same levels.

“The Easter holiday season, despite its short duration and high food prices, is estimated to have exceeded the purchasing activity of previous years,” Vassilis Korkidis, President of the Piraeus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recently said in a statement, adding that “The Easter turnover, which will reflected in the statistics for May, is likely to exceed last year’s 1.5 billion euros by a double-digit percentage. In addition, Mr. Korkidis stressed that despite initial concerns about limited consumption due to punctuality, traffic has increased in both food markets and commercial stores. “In most of the central shopping markets of the Attica regions, sales have improved and the average number of store visitors has increased significantly. Parents and godparents, like every year, and this year, responded to their family and social obligations in every possible way by buying traditional Easter gifts in their baptismal schools. “Easter” and “baptism” did their job, as they worked as a preventive measure to keep prices,” he stressed.

Inflationary pressure creates problems

At the same time, according to Mr. Savvidis, inflationary pressures and rising prices continue to worry the commercial world, which is seeing consumers’ dwindling disposable income increasingly spent in supermarkets on basic groceries. “Most of the income is consumed in supermarkets, and for the eighth month in a row, food prices have risen above inflation. Consumers in a hostile environment are suffocating by filling their basket with fewer and cheaper products, choosing by price over quality. Even the 9% increase in the minimum wage was absorbed by the rise in prices for essentials,” Mr. Savvidis emphasized and added: “In the next period, if food prices do not start to decrease, the situation will not be manageable in the market and especially in supermarkets “.

A survey conducted in March by the Athens Chamber of Commerce showed, according to Mr. Savvidis, the most important problems pointed out by the commercial world and which are hindering the further development of the sector. They concern political stability and financing mainly of small and medium-sized enterprises. In particular, he clarified that the upcoming elections are expected to affect the movement of consumers in the market, as well as the psychology of consumers, once again testing the business’s endurance. At the same time, traders, the core of SMEs, are concerned about the lack of funding from the banking system, which continues to threaten the survival of businesses.

With a positive sign, Easter online shopping

As for online shopping, Mr. Savvidis noted that it exceeded all expectations during the Easter holiday season this year. “E-commerce continues to take an increasing share of sales as competition intensifies from European companies looking to operate in the country,” he said characteristically. According to him, the growth in the use of e-commerce and the Internet in general in Greece continues, with every fifth Greek business enterprise (20% percentage) having an electronic channel, that is, 90% are extensions of a physical store. .

But how have Greek consumers’ online shopping changed over Easter? Skroutz recorded the buying behavior of consumers in online markets between 01/16/2023 and 04/16/2023 compared to the corresponding period last year from 09/24/2022. According to the collected data, the generated turnover of the Skroutz Marketplace stores for the reviewed period of 2023 increased by 12.76% compared to the corresponding period of 2022. The average price of the consumer basket also increased, reaching almost 60 euros (16.65% more than last year).

At the same time, the number of orders made through Skroutz during the period under review, reaching 40.52% compared to 2022, also increased significantly, indicating a trend for consumers to increasingly turn to online shopping. Shopping on the go data shows that more and more consumers are trusting in-app purchases. Notable in particular is the 67% increase in visits to the skroutz app, while visits to the website remained at the same level as last year’s Easter period.

White appliances monopolized consumer interest and showed the highest sales growth. According to Skrowz, the top 10 categories include: washing machines, dishwashers, refrigerators, ranges and ovens, range cookers, home inverter air conditioners, TVs, cooker hoods, processors and RAM. In fact, the category “washing machines” saw the biggest growth compared to 2022, reaching almost 800%.

The biggest move in online shopping occurred on Monday, April 3, the week before Holy Week, indicating that last-minute shopping is also becoming an online habit. Finally, over 2,000 orders were placed through Skroutz’s “Buy Now, Pay Later” program, with an average order value reaching €400, and consumers who chose Google Pay as their payment method made purchases of an average of €45.