The economic situation of trade in 2024 Report prepared for the Commission for National Commercial Accounts

In 2024, in France, against a backdrop of a slight economic slowdown, business trends in the commercial sectors were mixed. Retail and craft trade sales bounced back. They recovered in both in-store non-food sales and outof- store sales, with growth rates in excess of 2% in volume terms. In-store food sales went up only slightly despite the sharp slowdown in prices. In the wholesale sector, merchandise sales were steady overall in volume, a rebound of more than 6% in sales of goods by intermediaries notably offsetting the decline of more than 5% in sales by wholesalers of fuels and related products and of products for home and building installation. In the automotive and motorcycle trade and repair, sales dwindled by more than 3% after a sharp rise in 2023. Salaried employment in the trade sector as a whole declined slightly, whereas it grew very slightly in the commercial tertiary sector. Lastly, business start-ups bounced back and insolvencies continued to rise. In the first quarter of 2025, excluding the effects of seasonal variations and working days, sales in the trade sector as a whole are expected to go down in volume by 0.4 % compared with the average for 2024.