paints a sombre picture for the sector’s outlook for Quebec in 2013.

Target’s arrival will compound 2012’s poor sales

On balance, slightly up. But in the details, mostly down, down, down.

The numbers for Quebec’s retail sector were far from cheery in 2012 — and chances are they won’t be much better in 2013.

That sombre prognosis came Wednesday from the Conseil québécois du commerce de détail in its annual report on the year that’s past and what it expects in the year ahead.

“We haven’t seen this many negatives in quite a few years,” said Jean-François Grenier, senior director of Groupe Altus Recherche Marketing, which did the analysis for the retail council.

Of the 13 sectors studied using Statistics Canada data, seven in Quebec had fewer sales in 2012 than in 2011. In Canada as a whole, only one sector was down: home electronics and appliances.

Attribute that to “the distinct buying behaviour of Quebec consumers,” the council says.

The market here “has reached a certain maturity,” it says — or may even have “blown itself out.”

And while overall retail sales grew modestly in 2012 — by only 1.4 per cent to $103.9 billion, which is half the Canadian average of 3.1 per cent — they will shrink to a slim one per cent growth this year, the council predicts. That’s the lowest increase since the council started doing its annual analyses in 2005.

The anemic growth partly reflects Quebecers’ weak spending power. Like every year, disposable personal income here trails that of Canadians’ overall; last year it stayed roughly the same as in 2011 at about $27,000 per person.

Quebecers also save less money (only 2.2 per cent of their disposable income) and, like other Canadians, are racking up more and more mortgage debt as interest rates remain low.

Rather than label Quebec as cash-poor, however, the council points to a schism in prosperity: Canada’s retail market now works “at two speeds,” it says.

On the one hand, sales were way up last year in the oilrich provinces of Alberta (8.5 per cent), Saskatchewan (7.2 per cent) and Newfoundland and Labrador (5.5 per cent). But they grew only slightly in Quebec (1.4 per cent) and On- tario (2.1 per cent).

Since 2005, Quebec has posted annual sales gains of around five or six per cent, dropping to 2.5 per cent in 2011 (it went briefly negative in 2009 after the global financial crisis).

Last year, Quebec’s three top sectors were a mixed bag. Accounting for almost 60 per cent of all sales in the province, cars and car parts were up by 4.3 per cent, secondranked food sector was down 1.4 per cent, and gas stations, at No. 3, were up 2.4 per cent.

After that, it was mostly negative. Electronics and appliances: down 9.3 per cent. Independent retail stores: down 4.3 per cent. Furniture stores: down two per cent. And so on.

Big-box general stores like Walmart, however, were up (5.1 per cent), and so were home-accessory stores (4.9 per cent), clothing stores (2.1 per cent) and pharmacies and health-care stores (3.1 per cent).

Looking ahead, Quebecers’ spending power probably will be squeezed by several politically related factors in 2013, said council president Léopold Turgeon.

In particular, he noted, the minority Parti Québécois government has upped personal income taxes for people earning more than $100,000 a year, as well as hiked the health-care tax.

Retailers will need to adjust, too, he added, especially in the clothing and home-supplies sectors that will be hit when low-price U.S. giant Target starts opening stores here this autumn.

“The arrival of a big player like Target will influence market share,” Turgeon said. “Of course there will be an impact.”

With 438,000 employees, retail is Quebec’s second-largest employer, after the government.