This report series covers seven Western European countries – six major economies, plus Ireland: the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Ireland.

This data in its entirety is contained in the single copy seven-country report. Single country reports are also available for the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

This year, our exclusive consumer research spanned the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. In each of these markets, we asked consumers:

  • Which department stores they shopped at in the last six months and whether this was online or in-store (no online/offline split for Italy);

  • What product categories they bought from department stores in the past six months;

  • How satisfied they were with a range of elements at department stores.

Definitions of “department stores” vary across the four countries covered, with Italy and Spain including other large space retailers, such as hypermarkets, sports, electrical, furniture and toy retailers as well as department stores.

Additional questions were asked to consumers for the UK report. We did not survey consumers in the Netherlands or Ireland.

Department store definition

There is no hard and fast definition for a department store. But, we would expect stores to typically trade from a minimum of 1,000 sq m and stock at least half a dozen different broad product categories, with one category unlikely to account for more than two thirds of turnover, and usually significantly less than this.

As a minimum, all department stores covered in this report sell adult and children’s apparel, lingerie, fashion accessories, footwear, beauty products and some homewares. Larger full-line stores have a much wider product assortment.

Some department stores have food halls, and these are typically upscale and geared towards fine foods and delicatessen, and so are differentiated from the everyday supermarket.

The offer usually covers a mix of concessions and own-bought ranges, increasingly with private label element within the own-bought assortment.

Mixed goods retailers

National statistics offices do not collate data on a department store sector. Around Europe, department stores are typically included within the broader Mixed Goods Retailers sector.

This is something of a catch-all sector covering not only large-space department stores, but variety stores, non-food discount stores and a whole host of other retailers who do not specialise in any one particular non-food product category.

But note that some national Mixed Goods sectors will exclude some major department store chains where they have an overwhelming product focus: in the UK, there are three retailers that we include in our department store sector size that we believe are not classified as mixed goods retailers by the National Statistics Office - M&S, Debenhams and Harvey Nichols, all of which are categorised as clothing specialists.

Statutory revenues versus GTV

There are two means of accounting for sales through department stores:

  • Statutory revenue, which are sales made by the department stores themselves, plus any payments made by third-party concessionaires to them.

  • Gross transactional value, which is the total value of sales made in the department stores, and includes the total sales values of third-party concessionaires.

Financial definitions

  • All retailers’ sales figures are quoted excluding VAT, unless specifically stated otherwise.

  • In our European reports, all retail sector sales are quoted excluding VAT, unless specifically stated otherwise. In our UK report, retail sales data includes VAT.

  • Consumer spending data is quoted including VAT, unless specifically stated otherwise.

  • Operating profit is trading profit after normal operating costs and depreciation, but before interest, goodwill amortisation and exceptional items.

  • Pre-tax profit is calculated after all costs, including exceptionals, interest, and non-cash charges such as amortisation, but before tax.

Note that there can be a number of reasons why tables do not sum exactly:

  • Rounding errors.

  • Currency conversions if original data for different subsidiaries was in different currencies (companies often provide information in local currencies).

  • VAT (sales tax) – if original data was provided gross (including sales tax), we have extracted VAT at the relevant rates for countries concerned and at the estimated appropriate rates depending on product categories sold.

  • Information on all subsidiaries is not always available. As a result in some cases we have an entry for the parent company, and subsidiary information on only one part of the business.

Currencies

  • Conversion from local currencies to euros is carried out at the average rate ruling during the year.

Where a retailer has a non-calendar year-end, the closest calendar year rate has been used.

Figure 1: Euro to Pound exchange rates, 2008-13
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
€ to £ 0.7964 0.8917 0.859 0.8678 0.8111 0.8489

Sales per store, sales per sq m

  • Sales per sq m is the sales generated during the year divided by the average area traded from during that year.

  • Sales per store is calculated using the average number of trading outlets during the year.

VAT rates

Austerity budgets mean that a number of countries have increased VAT rates.

  • The Czech Republic and Finland raised VAT rates at the start of 2013. Italy raised the standard rate from 21% to 22% on 1 October 2013.

  • France raised VAT slightly to 20% on 1 January 2014.

Figure 2: Europe: VAT rates, 2010-14
01-Jan-10 31-Dec-10 01-Jan-11 31-Dec-11 01-Jan-12 01-Jan-13 01-Jan-14
% % % % % % %
Austria 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
Belgium 21 21 21 21 21 21 21
Czech Republic 20 20 20 20 20 21 21
Denmark 25 25 25 25 25 25 25
Finland 23 23 23 23 23 24 24
France 19.6 19.6 19.6 19.6 19.6 19.6 20
: : : : : : : :
: : : : : : : :
(a) 2011 VAT rise was implemented on 4 January

Abbreviations

B2B Business-to-Business
C2C Consumer-to-Consumer (sales)
CAGR Compound Annual Growth Rate
COICOP Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose
CPI Consumer Prices Index
e Mintel Estimate
f Mintel Forecast
GDP Gross Domestic Product
: :
: :
Back to top