Retail vs. the State Statistics Service: Russians reduce purchases and suffer from the crisis despite the official statistics
While the Federal State Statistics Service reports that the real income of Russians declined by only 1.7% over the first nine months, retail indicators reveal a significant decrease in purchases. Retailers describe the third quarter of 2022 as the worst in the history of the country. Supermarket sales are falling in real terms, and in nominal terms, they are maintained solely by rising prices. In the non-food segment, the drop reached 15%. There are several explanations for this discrepancy.