Inflation to cancel out German retail sales growth in 2022

German retailers should be able to increase nominal revenues by an average of 3% in 2022, but price-adjusted sales will likely stagnate due to high inflation, industry association HDE said on Tuesday.

The impetus will come primarily from the expected growth of 13.5% in online retail this year, compared to 1.2% in traditional retail, HDE said in a statement, adding big retail chains are likely to fare better than smaller companies.

"Total sales will grow, but some of the players are clear losers," HDE Chief Executive Stefan Genth said, referring to small businesses and shops in city centre areas as unvaccinated people cannot enter non-essential retail shops in Germany.

"This measure, which is useless in the fight against the pandemic, must finally be dropped nationwide," Genth said.