The World Cup brought little relief to the Watcom Shopping Index, as the index continued to underperform the last three years in July.

The Shopping Index dropped by 4% on average compared to May — down by 5.2% in the first week of the month and 5.97% in the second month. That was despite careful preparation by the leading shopping malls in Moscow to cater to the hordes of costumed revellers that descended on the Russian capital from all over the world.

The World Cup did boost sales but they seems to have been concentrated in very specific and rather predictable product groups.

Sales of beer, snacks and food as well as sales in related retail sectors all grew, according to Watcom’s specialists. Overall, consumption grew by more than RUB5mn during the summer in retail including payment services, Internet, mobile communications and tourism, but the good cheer failed to spill over into the top shopping malls.

Vegas Crocus City International Press Center was opened and saw increased traffic. Afimall also organised a fan zone with live broadcasts of matches, a playground and for kids and other entertainment. But this didn't translate into higher sales.

As the chart shows, the leading malls all saw traffic down on previous years as revellers stayed in the streets around Red Square, according to Watcom Group CEO Roman Skorokhodov.

The poor results are partly related to a structural change in Russian retail where more shopping is shifting online and customers prefer to use their mouse to buy staples and commoditised items like clothes and tickets online than trek down to the mall.

Incomes have been rising all year and consumer credit has also taken off and reached a point where the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) is thinking about intervening to slow the growth.

Overall, retail spending has done better and gathered pace in the summer months, which highlights the structural shift from malls to computers.

Retail sales growth came in at 3.0% y/y in June, according to Rosstat – the best performance since December 2014. Consumers are benefiting from lower inflation, looser monetary policy and improving labour market conditions.

The improved demand was also not reflected in industrial production, which disappointed, slowing from 3.7% y/y in May to 2.2% y/y in June – below the consensus expectation of 3.2% y/y. That was driven by a marked slowdown in manufacturing output growth. The manufacturing PMI also slowed in June for the third month in a row.

But the bigger picture is that Russia’s economy strengthened over the second quarter as a whole, according to Capital Economics. Its growth tracker suggests that GDP growth accelerated from 1.3% y/y in the first quarter to around 2.5% y/y in the second, the analysts said in a recent note. “If that’s correct, it would be the joint-best performance since 2012,” Capital Economics commented.