Tatarstan residents tightening their belts: retail market slows

The turnover of the retail market in Tatarstan has increased by 7.4% to 1.6 trillion rubles. This is an excellent indicator, but the market grew more dynamically a year earlier (+11.3%). The turnover of food trade reached 713.2 billion rubles, an increase of 3.7% (a year earlier, the dynamics was 6.3%). The turnover of the non-food market increased by 10.4% to 898 billion rubles. But here, too, there is a slowdown in growth rates — a year earlier they amounted to 15.6%.

Key indicators of the consumer market of Tatarstan

The number of consumer market enterprises is growing — the number of retail enterprises has increased by 80 units to 16,521 enterprises. The number of catering establishments increased by 220 to 5,663, and the number of consumer services facilities increased by 448 to 7,035.

Enterprises of the consumer market of Tatarstan

The growth of the catering market in 2024 also slowed down compared to 2023. The market turnover reached 80.2 billion rubles, it increased by 8.8% (previously it was 14.8%). The turnover of the consumer services market increased by 5.8% to 75.4 billion rubles. The growth dynamics of this segment, according to Tatarstan Statistics, has not changed.

Turnover of public catering market and household services

According to Rosstat, in 2024 there was a slowdown in the growth rate of the consumer market in 40 regions of our country, in two regions there is a decline — this is the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (-0.8%) and the city of Sevastopol (-4.3%)

According to Expert RA, today, among the factors influencing consumer sentiment, we can single out the inflation expectations of the population, the monetary policy of the Central

“The faster growth in the segment of non-food products is due to that the population, fearing a decrease in the supply of goods against the background of sanctions and a decrease in the value of money, “invests” them in non-food products. While the food market is more provided with goods produced in the domestic market of the country," the expert comments.

Further consumer behaviour will depend on the economic situation, the inflation rate, the state of the labour market and the geopolitical situation, says Iskhakova.

Retail sales stagnated in Tatarstan

At the same time, if we talk about the dynamics of public catering (a good proxy for the state of consumer demand), then everything is fine here, and the dynamics of consumption is only accelerating. The turnover of public catering in 2024 increased by 9%, to 3.4 trillion rubles.

“If we talk about Tatarstan, the retail growth for the year was 7.4%, which is slightly higher than the national level. However, retail sales stagnated in the fourth quarter: in October, the increase was 1.4% (YoY), in November — 1.7%, and in December — 2.3%. Overall, growth in Russia in these months exceeded 5% (YoY). A similar dynamic is observed in services," Ivanov said.

“We see a slowdown in the growth of the consumer market, and in some regions we see stagnation in demand at the end of the year," the analyst added.

The expert predicts that the growth rate of the consumer market this year will depend on the dynamics of household incomes. “Despite that income growth slowed down by the fourth quarter, they still exceed inflation. This allows the population to continue to increase (or maintain high levels of) spending," he comments. “Partly, the dynamics of the consumer sector will depend on geopolitics. The lifting or easing of some sanctions may boost consumer demand.”

What trends will continue to influence the market?

The main question of the consumer market at all times is: “Does the consumer have money?”. And now, despite all the difficulties in the consumer market, logistics and personnel, we have the most important thing — we have a consumer who works and earns, and who, on the one hand, is thinking.: “And whether to spend the money now or put it on deposit (because the government strongly recommends that he keep the money in banks).” On the other hand, there are always opportunities and tools for consumers to spend this money," says Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline Analytics. “In 2024, the consumer was willing enough to spend this money: “He eats better, starts buying cars, which has not happened for a long time (our car market grew very much last year).”

Infoline highlights several key challenges for the Russian consumer market in 2025. First, there is the import situation — the weakening of the ruble, exchange rate instability, problems with payments even in friendly countries, as well as fees and transaction costs, which increase the costs of importers.

Many companies developed during the period when the key interest rate was low, and this created opportunities for rapid development with borrowed funds. Now the situation has changed, and we see that companies will be forced to build their policies in a completely different way. And those companies that are heavily indebted will work to reduce their debt.

The labour market situation also has a strong impact on the consumer market.

“There has never been such an acute shortage of personnel in Russia. Over the past three years, the civilian sector of the economy has lost almost 2 million people: this includes the conclusion of a contract within the framework of the SVO, and an unprecedented reduction in the number of migrants. We can see that the number of migrants in Russia is at a historic low. There are prerequisites that unemployment will continue to decline further," Burmistrov predicts.

The dynamics and volume of the consumer market always depend on the size of the population, and Russia has been breaking birth records every year, with a natural population decline. In addition, the number of foreign citizens in the country today is at a historic low and will continue to decrease.

At the same time, the number of single-person households has almost doubled over the past 14 years, reaching 45%. “This means a huge increase in the consumption of a range of non-food products. In food, we see an increase in the consumption of ready-made food, as one person does not want to cook. Another trend is that we have increased the number of male buyers," Burmistrov notes.

“If we talk about the dynamics of retail, over the past 20 months, since April 2023, Russia has been in a period of strong steady sales growth in the food and non-food sector. The last time we had such a period was in 2007," the analyst notes.

For the first time in the last 10 years, Russia has reached a level comparable to 2013 in terms of consumer accessibility, with the exception of two large groups of durable goods — apartments and cars. The availability of apartments and cars has decreased critically, Burmistrov admits.

Today, consumers have two options to choose from — spend money or deposit, and consumers are actively moving in both directions. Deposits are growing quite fast. The increase in interest rates has led to that Russians will receive incomes of about 7-8 trillion rubles on deposits alone.

In addition to the rapid growth, the Russian market is becoming mature. “A mature market is a highly consolidated market: two thirds of the market is occupied by the top 100 largest retailers. In five years, the share of the largest retailers has doubled. The second point is that mature markets are, as a rule, markets that do not grow quickly," Burmistrov notes.

The growth of the Russian market today is explained by the influence of marketplaces. “If we look at the dynamics without taking into account marketplaces, we will see that the vast majority of non-food categories are falling in monetary and physical terms by more than 10%," says the expert.

In 2020-2024, the Russian e-com is growing by an average of 40% per year. “We expect a slowdown in 2025-2027, but it will be at the level of 27%. Most countries can only dream of this. We are currently on a par with South Korea in terms of e-com development and lagging only behind China," Burmistrov sums up.

Approach to spending will become more rational

The average monthly expenses of Russians in 2024 amounted to 39,500 rubles. Adjusted for inflation, expenses increased by 6% last year.

“If the high inflation rate persists, Russians will change their consumption, using a more rational approach to consumer spending and making more informed decisions in order to preserve the quality of life while limiting real incomes," Shayakhmetov predicts. “Therefore, the purchase of basic goods will be less impulsive, planning elements will be used more often.”

Purchases will become more rational, in particular, purchases of expensive food products such as seafood, fish, and premium cheeses will decrease. Customers will begin to monitor the situation more closely and make choices based on an analysis of prices in stores: some products are more profitable to buy in the store, and some are better to order on the marketplace. “A significant part of consumers will switch to cheaper comparable analogues and will buy them in cheaper stores," he does not exclude. “At the same time, repairs will be used more often if it is cheaper than buying a new one. They will also rent and exchange things more often.”

The availability of many goods is decreasing, says Shayakhmetov. So, if in 2014 the average cost of a new car was at the level of 30 monthly salaries of Russians, then last year it was already at about 40.