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The South African trade industry is made up of five divisions – wholesale, motor, accommodation, food and beverages (i.e. restaurants and catering) and retail. Here are five facts that you might not have known about the retail trade industry. 1. South Africans spent R31 900 per second in retail stores in 2017.

You contributed a small portion to the R1 trillion in sales (current prices) generated by the retail trade industry in 2017, every time you stepped into a store to buy groceries, clothes or electronic equipment. This translates to about R31 900 spent per second across the industry during the course of that year.

Spending on retail was up by

2.9 percent in 2017, compared with 2016 in volume terms (constant prices), higher than the 1.7 percent annual growth recorded in 2016, but lower than the 3.3 percent in 2015.

Stores specialising in food and beverages had particular reason to smile. They saw their sales rise by five percent in 2017, the second largest annual growth rate recorded across various store types, after the miscellaneous ‘all other retailers' category. But hardware stores registered a decline in sales.

2. General dealers are responsible for 44 percent of sales.

Despite general dealers experiencing lacklustre growth of only 1.1 percent in 2017, they dominated the industry in terms of sales value. For every R100 that consumers spent at retail stores in 2017, R44 was spent at general dealers, which includes supermarkets. The second largest contributor was stores specialising in clothing and textiles, contributing R18 for every R100 of total sales. 3. Meat accounts for 8.1 percent of total sales income.

South Africans love their meat. A detailed list of products shows meat as the most popular commodity in the retail trade industry, contributing 8.1 percent to total sales income in 2014/15. Pharmaceutical goods and female clothing were the second and third most popular products, according to Stats

SA's Retail Trade Industry, 2015 Report.

4. Non-specialised stores are the largest employer.

In 2014/15, over one-third of the 812 104 individuals working in retail were employed in non-specialised stores. Clothing stores were second, employing 23 percent of the retail workforce.

5. Non-specialised stores pay the lowest salaries.

Non-specialised stores have the highest number of employees but the lowest salaries.The average annual salary for a person working in a non-specialised store was R66 044 in 2014/15, lower than the average of R93 632 for the entire retail trade industry.