Stores before Easter: Number of shoppers rising, but basket smaller

Easter holidays, eagerly awaited by retailers to fatten their sales after consumption further shrank in the first months of this year, show Romanians’ budget is still low and the shopping basket is poorer than last year.

“The best-selling products in the weekend before Easter were vegetable oil, bananas, sugar, fish, tomatoes and water,” says Andreea Mihai, a marketing manager with Carrefour, the biggest hypermarket operator on the domestic market.

Cora representatives in their turn say that among the best-selling products, some are private labels of the store network. As in Romania these products are associated with the low-price segment, their having reached the top of the best-selling Easter items shows Romanians are still focusing on price.