On behalf of the Swedish Trade Council, HUI Research conducts an annual study of Sweden’s regional retail businesses across all consumer goods segments. The survey, which has been running since 1992, contains unique data and is one of the most reliable sources of knowledge about retail trade at the local and regional levels.
The survey – broken down by municipality – for 2021 shows that brick-and-mortar retail sales in Sweden amounted to SEK 718 billion overall in 2021, a growth of 3.2 percent compared to 2020, with daily consumer goods sales growing by 1.4 percent and daily consumer goods sales growing by 5.2 percent. In the previous year, e-commerce accounted for virtually all retail growth, but in 2021, physical retail and e-commerce grew almost equally in terms of sales.
Highlights from the survey:
- Stockholm accounted for 18 percent of the country’s growth in 2021. Growth was 5.5 percent in Stockholm, while Gothenburg and Malmö saw slightly weaker growth. Stockholm was the only one of the major cities to have negative growth in the previous year.
- The municipalities of Falkenberg and Sigtuna had the strongest growth in 2021 (among municipalities with 40,000 or more inhabitants). Falkenberg is home to the low-cost destination Gekås and Sigtuna is home to Arlanda Airport, destinations hit hard by the pandemic. Despite strong growth rates in 2021, neither Falkenberg nor Sigtuna reached the pre-pandemic level of 2019.
- Border trade has not bounced back. The largest border trade municipalities lost a combined 42 percent of retail sales in 2020, and in 2021 border trade stagnated at the same level. Strömstad suffered the largest decline during the pandemic, losing 67 percent of sales between 2019 and 2021, equivalent to more than SEK 6 billion.
More insights and the development of all municipalities and more interesting key figures can be found on Handelsfakta.se (in Swedish).
