Limited Recovery in the Retailing Sector TEPE, which demonstrated a limited month-on-month recovery, outscored the EU-27 Retail Index with a record-high difference.

Maintaining the trend in August, TEPE stood in the negatives in September. Demonstrating a limited month-on-month recovery, TEPE deteriorated year-on-year. The gap between TEPE and EU-27 Retail Index reached the highest in favor of Turkey.

TEPE, which had stood in the negatives for the first time in August 2011 since October 2010, had a value of -1.3 in September 2011. This implies a month-on-month increase by 0.9 points and a year-on-year decrease by 1.2 points.

The balance value of the expectations for the next three months stood at 5.5 in September 2011. 46.3 percent of TEPE survey participants expect an improvement in their business activities in the next three months while 22.1 percent expect a deterioration. This implies a 5.6-point increase compared to September 2010 and a 0.9 point increase compared to August 2011.

The difference between the participants who declared a year-on-year improvement in business activities and who declared a year-on-year deterioration in business activities increased by 5.8 points compared to September 2010 and by 10.6 points compared to August 2011.

EU-27 Retail Confidence Index stood at -13.3 in September 2011, implying a 2.4-point month-on-month decrease and a 14.5-point year-on-year decrease. This was the highest gap between TEPE and EU-27 Index since May 2008, when the TEPE was first conducted.

Concerning sub-sectors, non-specializes stores demonstrated the best performance in September 2011 compared to the same period last year. This sector was followed by the food, beverages and tobacco products sector. Textiles, ready-made clothing and footwear sector performed worse than it did in the previous year and stood around the sector average. Electrical appliances, radio and television sector; furniture and lighting equipment sector; and the “others” sector performed worse than the average and lagged behind the previous year in performance. Motor vehicles sector demonstrated the largest year-on-year decline in performance.

Question-based examination of the TEPE survey reveals that compared to September 2010, all expectations and factors improved except the level of business activities over the past three months, number of stores in the next year and current level of inventory. Level of inventory converged to normal levels compared to August 2011 as well as September 2010. The year-on-year improvement in the expectations for sales prices in the next three months as well as orders placed with suppliers was remarkable. In addition, the rise in business activities compared to the previous year was stronger.