The holiday shopping season gave Moscow’s leading malls a boost as 2018 came to an end but that had as much to do with retailers extending “Black Friday” to “Black December” in an effort to give their end of year numbers a bump, as it did with a revival in mall shopping traffic. Overall 2018 was the worst year the Watcom Shopping Index has recorded since it was founded in 2014.

During the last week of 2018 (December 24-30) the Shopping Index increased by 3.3% over the week before, while in St Petersburg it was down by 5.9%.

Overall the Watcom Shopping Index in 2018 was down by 5.2% compared to 2017. As for the first week in 2019, the Shopping Index decreased by 3.92% compared to 2018 in like-for-like (LFL) sales.

Part of the bump at the end of the year came from the “Black Friday” shopping discount tradition that Russia has taken over from the US that this year was prolonged to become a “Black Month” by retailers looking to boost revenue and traffic.

The index has trailed behind all three of the previous years this year partly because of the stagnant real incomes and partly because traditional retail is facing growing and irresistible competition from the booming e-commerce.

In order to keep their stores full, managers have become increasingly adept at organising enticement to bring people into the malls – including entertainment, but also cutting prices.

Shoppers responded well as punters went bargain hunting, looking for discounts and deals on goods that were actively advertised on TV during this period.

Watcom CEO Roman Skorokhodov said: “Traditionally in the beginning of the year sales go down as people prefer to stay home or they are abroad on holidays. In Petersburg the decrease accounted for 1.54% due to the fact that many big shopping centres are in the centre of the city, and tourists visit them.”

In related news a survey by Romir found that Russians spent the largest amount in the last four years in December in nominal terms, but taking into account the level of accumulated inflation, their expenses were the least for the same period in real terms.

In December, the total daily expenses of Russians increased by 13.2% compared to November and by 1.6% compared with December 2017 — the highest in the last four years. However, taking into account 4.3% of accumulated inflation over the year cancelled out the increase and results in a fall in spending in real terms — the lowest in the last four years .

Residents of the northwest of the country, where expenditure increased by 11.9% in the last month of the year, proved to be the most modest in their spending. The most profligate were residents of the south and Siberia, where expenses in December increased by 15.7%. In the Central District, consumer spending increased by 14.4% over the month, in the Volga Region by 13.3%, and in the Urals by 12.8%.