The Basque Country has lost a third of its retail stores in the last decade

Online shopping and the lack of generational change shake the sector in Hegoalde, losing hundreds of small stores every year, both in the Basque Country and in Navarra.

Euskaraz irakurri: Euskadik bere txikizkako saltokien herena galdu du azken hamarkadan

The lack of generational change and the progressive increase in online purchases has accelerated the loss of retail businesses, both in the Basque Country and in Navarra. However, this phenomenon is not new, but structural, ongoing, which has been taking place since the economic crisis of 2008 and which has worsened due to the pandemic, according to data provided by EITB Data.

This trend is shared throughout the territory of the Spanish State, however, in the Basque Country it is more acute than in the other territories, with a loss of 27% of the commercial fabric from 2010 to 2021 compared to 15% in Navarra and 11% in the whole of the state. And it is that annually, the Basque Country lost around 2.1% of its commercial fabric during the years 2015-2019, while in 2019-2021, the loss increased to 3.9% per year.

But, what kind of businesses have been lost in the Basque Country? According to data from EITB Data, fashion stores are the ones that have suffered the most from this setback, by far compared to other types of commerce.

Consequently, the retail commercial density in Hegoalde has been falling year after year during the last decade: while in 2010 in the Basque Country there were 11.2 shops of this type for every thousand inhabitants, in 2022 there were 8.2; in Navarra the trend is the same, but without such a drop, from 10.2 shops per thousand inhabitants to 8.7.

However, even having lost hundreds of small businesses, the commercial density in Hegoalde remains one of the largest in Europe, behind Portugal and Italy.