Small stores and big chains in Italy

Italy is one of the big European markets with 59 million consumers, there is only one Italian retailer (in 27th place) among the top 30 European retail enterprises. 77 percent of stores belong in the “small” category, accounting for only 7 percent of total sales in the first quarter of 2008. Supermarkets account for the largest percentage of total sales (40 percent), whereas only 6 percent of all stores are supermarkets. The expansion of the hyper market channel has stopped in recent years, with hyper markets accounting for 26 percent of total retail sales in the first quarter of 2008. In terms of numbers, hyper markets account for 6 percent of all retail units. Self-service units accounted for 15 percent of total sales in the first quarter of this year. Discount stores, traditional stores and specialised units hold even smaller markets hares. The number of hyper markets was up by 9 percent n the first quarter if 2008, compared to 2007. The number of discounts was up by 7 percent, while that of specialised units was 5 percent higher. The number of supermarkets also rose by 2 percent, while that of small stores dropped by 2 percent. As a result of a lack of concentration, there are no gigantic retail enterprises in Italy. Coop Italia ranks 27th in Europe, with total revenues of EUR 11.8 billion on 2007. Carrefour and Auchan are second a third in Italy with respective revenues of EUR 7.9, and 7.3 billion. Sales of fresh food were up by 7 percent in terms of value in the above period, while that of pre-packaged food was up by 5 percent. However, sales of non-food products were down by 4 percent. Retail sales of the following categories showed outstanding growth in August this year, compared to August 2007: pasta (35 percent), wheat flour (30), carbonated mineral water (28) pro-biotic products (26).