Sberbank’s SberIndex registers that consumers changed their behavior due to increased number of COVID-19 cases.
Between September 21 and 27, spending dropped in the Cafés and Restaurants category by 17.7%, compared to 2019, although it was 3.9% a week earlier. It is evident that many Russians preferred to avoid going to public places.
In general, between September 21 and 27, the consumer demand fell by 2.4% y-o-y. In four weeks, the spending of households decreased merely by 0.1% y-o-y. The consumer activity index also fell insignificantly to reach 77 out of 100 points last week.
The drop in the service segment reached a typical post-COVID level (–14.0% y-o-y), the demand at conventional stores, i.e. offline retail, is also weakening. Consumer spending for furniture, clothing, cafés and restaurants were close to the last year results on Monday-Wednesday (the decrease was –1.4% y-o-y, –5.7% y-o-y, –3.0% y-o-y respectively), but there was an evident decrease on Thursday-Sunday (–4.2% y-o-y, –15.8% y-o-y and –26.1% y-o-y) amid the news of climbing number of COVID-19 cases.