Diminishing consumer confidence has clearly fed into retail activity across Europe and most of its retail markets have begun to show news signs of distress.

The Global Retail Attractiveness Index (GRAI) compiled by Union Investment and GfK shows that confidence in the European segments of the index - which covers 15 countries in the continent - has dropped in the third quarter of 2022 by seven points to 106.4 points. In Germany, Austria, Finland and Sweden, values fell by 15 points on average in the third quarter of 2022 compared with the same period in the previous year.

The Portuguese retail market is a particular bright spot. Portugal was the only country in the EU-15 index to record growth in the third quarter, bucking the general trend by climb­ ing five points. Portugal, Poland (120 points) and France (111 points) were the new top trio in the index at the end of the third quarter. Germany (110 points) dropped out of the top group for the first time and