25% off retail business countries completely disappeared from the country’s business map in the decade 2010-2020, reflecting the high price paid by retailers during the period economic crisis and then during pandemic crisis. In the early years of the financial crisis alone, between 2010 and 2014, the sector lost 61% of its gross value added only to subsequently recover, and finally the cumulative decline reached 49% in the decade from 2010 to 2020. In the same decade, it collectively lost 29% of its turnover, which is due to the fact that thousands of enterprises were quarantined, as well as the fact that in general consumption retreated, hitting all the enterprises that could resist.

This event pushed thousands of workers into the group of unemployed, and the total number of employed in the retail trade decreased, as shown in the study “Retail, business trends and consumer behavior in Greece”, prepared Financial Research Department of Alfa-Bank and published yesterday – up to 13%. And 13% may not say much in terms of percentage, but when it comes to the country’s largest employer – since retail was and still is the country’s largest employer – this means that in the decade 2010-2020, cumulatively, about 65,000 workers were lost. places.

As with any crisis, of course, there are winners and losers, whether it’s for entire retail sub-industries or business sizes. So while we’ve had some of the biggest retail lockouts in the previous decade, such as Marinopoulos, Veropoulos, and Electronic Athens, the big hit has been mostly small and very small businesses. but also specific industries. In addition, 58% of retailers in Greece are essentially sole proprietorships and only hire their own owner, while 40% employ between 2 and 9 people.

Among the big losers from the decade-long crisis was the subsector of furniture, textiles and home appliances in general. According to a study by Alfa-Bank, there were 19,371 companies in this sub-sector in 2020 compared to 38,638 in 2010, i.e. nearly half of these have been lost in a decade of economic crisis, and employment in the sector has declined as the number of employed has dropped to 46,686 in 2020 from 98,000 in 2010. In just one year 2014, this sub-sector lost 75% of its gross value added, which it has yet to fully recover.

One in four businesses closed during the Great Depression.

At the opposite end is the sub-sector selling computers and technology products in general. Although its gross value added fell by 53% in the decade 2010-2020, with 25% of value actually lost in the first year of the financial crisis, its turnover increased in the same decade, the number of enterprises increased by 14%, while the number of employees increased by 10%. This is the sector that recovered most of the losses of the decade in the first period of the pandemic and especially during the two years 2020-2021.

A special category is made up of non-specialized stores – mainly supermarkets. And it is special not only because it is larger, but also because, despite the reduction in the number of enterprises in the industry by 18% compared to 2010, employment increased by 20%.

The reason is mainly the high concentration that existed in this sector and especially in the supermarket subcategory: three supermarket chains (Sklavenitis, AB Vassilopoulos and Metro) accounted for 64% of the total turnover of the non-specialized store category in 2020. . Non-specialized stores account for 44% of retail turnover, of which 87% are in supermarkets, and employ 31% of all retail staff, 88% of whom also work in supermarkets.

The concentration in supermarkets occurred both due to acquisitions – mergers of chains, and due to the fact that in the crisis decade, specialized food stores (bakery, meat, fish, fruit, etc.) sharply reduced their turnover – by 32% only in 2014– , in contrast to what happened with supermarket chains. The consequence of the above was a reduction over the decade 2010-2020. number of enterprises by 31% and employment by 12%.