Finland Times

Over the same period, the volume of retail trade sales, from which the impact of prices has been eliminated, grew by 1.4 per cent.

In daily consumer goods trade, sales grew by 2.4 per cent and the sales volume by 3.6 per cent in March from the corresponding period of the previous year.

Turnover developed weaker than sales volume both in retail trade and in daily consumer goods trade due to fallen prices, the data show.

The reported annual changes in trade sales and sales volumes are not seasonally or trading day adjusted, which means that the effects of public holidays are not considered.

In March, the development of sales was partly due to Easter being in March this year, while last year it was in April.

The fact that Easter occurs in different months is in particular visible in the sales development of food during March and April.

In addition, the development of retail trade was in March to April affected by sales campaigns being arranged in a different month than last year.

The opening hours of retail shops were deregulated starting from 1 January 2016, after which some retail shops extended their opening hours.

Daily consumer goods, according to the Structural business and financial statement statistics, accounted for 48.9 per cent of turnover in retail trade in 2014.

The retail trade flash estimate is based on a sample covering, on the average, 60 per cent of retail trade turnover.