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The sudden arrival of COVID-19 and lockdown led to a major slowdown in the retail sector. The graph on the Evolution in sales index and occupancy rate in retail trade shows that sales plummeted by around -32% during the first months of the pandemic in Spain (March-April 2020). Once the initial shutdown ended, the comparable sales rates remained negative, as many businesses were either not allowed to open or could not financially justify opening due to the restrictions imposed. As the lockdown measures were gradually loosened, a commercial landscape of businesses that had closed or been forced to change direction began to emerge. Only essential traders, such as food and pharmaceutical suppliers, escaped the closures. As a result, this key indicator of the commercial scene, which has always followed a positive trend, registered negative figures in February 2020. The effects on employment in this sector were even worse, with the positive pre-pandemic figures experiencing a remarkable fall during the pandemic.
The restrictions brought in to lessen the effects of the pandemic led to other changes for commerce, such as the public turning to local businesses for their essential products and, most importantly, the increase in the amount of people using e-commerce. Large distribution chains and smaller shops were forced to adapt to online trading as lockdown turned what had previously been a steadily growing trend into a sudden and widespread shopping habit. That said, even the sales volumes registered by e-commerce businesses took a hit during the darkest days of the pandemic, yet they picked up quickly as traders learned to adapt, and by the fourth quarter of 2020 had reached impressive figures.
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The economic crisis filtered into the real-estate market and financial operations right from the very beginning of the pandemic, resulting in an extraordinary drop in the amount of mortgages signed from March to July 2020 compared to the same period of the previous year, with pre-pandemic figures remaining elusive until the summer months (General Council of Notaries Public, 2021). Moreover, the banking industry’s concern about possible defaults on mortgages combined with the uncertain outlook in the initial stages of the pandemic caused Euribor to rise, although it remained in negative territory. This could have further discouraged buyers and shrank the property market. Nevertheless, despite this initial reaction, 2020 eventually ended with a drop in Euribor and an uptick in new mortgages, yet figures remained below those registered in 2019. The worst figures in 2020 were registered in April, and the decrease in the amount of mortgages granted came together with a drop in the average amount offered (Mortgage Statistics, National Statistics Institute, 2021).
