Bulgarians buy less clothes and furniture, spend more on medicines and cosmetics.

Bulgarian reduced purchases of clothing, furniture and household equipment and instead spend more on drugs, cosmetics and fuels. This shows the data from the National Statistics Institute for the retail trade.

They reflect the purchases of households and can be used as a proxy for recovery in consumption, which is one of the most accurate indicators of whether Bulgarians feel out of the crisis. The latest survey of NSI showed that on a monthly basis (from April 2011) retailing grew by 0.4% and annual increase is 1.6%.

Statistics compare the turnover in retail trade last year with the prices from the last year, which means that the declines reflect lower quantities of purchased goods.

Breakdown of the annual data shows that sales of commercial sites and footwear decreased by 3.8% while sales of furniture, household appliances and other household goods fell by 2.3%.

The most serious increase is for the purchases of fuel - with 7%, and the sales of medicines and cosmetics - by 7.2%. Among the goods whose consumption is growing less, have more computers and mobile phones - by 2.0%, and overall e-commerce - by 1.7%.

NSI shows also another trend in the sales of food, beverages and tobacco products  - the most of the purchases move from non-specialist to specialist shops. But overall, however, sales of food, tobacco and beverage decreased by 1.8% on annual basis.

Source : NSI / dnevnik.bg