This report series covers the five large Western European countries – the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

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

Our exclusive consumer research spans all five countries. In each of these markets, we asked consumers:

• Which department stores they had visited or bought anything from in the last six months, and whether this was online or in-store.

• Attitudes towards shopping at department stores.

Additional questions were asked to consumers for the UK report.

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 a private label element within the own-bought assortment. 

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 that 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.

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.

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

• In our UK report, all retail sales data are quoted including VAT unless specifically quoted otherwise.

• 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.

• 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.

• Sales per sq m represent 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 outlets trading during the year.

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

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

• Italy raised VAT to 22% in October 2013.There is a proposal to raise it further in 2016.

• Spain raised VAT to 21% in September 2012

• The UK raised VAT to 20% in January 2011.