Official estimates indicate that German retail sales fell by around 2% in 2009.
The federal statistics office's provisional figure, based on data from the first 11 months of the year, was in line with economists' forecasts.
When the effects of inflation were stripped out, however, the drop was expected to be between 2.5% and 2.7%, the Destatis office said.
That is still better, however, than the contraction of around 5% that German authorities have forecast for the overall economy last year, its worst slump since World War II.
A key factor supporting consumption was the smaller than expected rise in unemployment, in large part the result of government subsidised short-work schemes, from which around one million workers benefit at present.
The retail sector federation HDE and many economists have issued cautious forecasts for 2010, however, since unemployment is expected to rise despite a modest pick-up in exports and industrial output.
In November, retail sales fell 1.1% from the previous month, according to seasonally adjusted figures released by Destatis.
Meanwhile, German industrial orders gained just 0.2% in November from the previous month, provisional data released today showed, as Europe's biggest economy climbs with difficulty out of recession.
Economists had expected a gain of 1.4% following a decline in October that was revised to 1.9% from an initial figure of 2.1%.
On a two-month basis meant to smooth out exceptional spikes in the data, industrial orders fell by 1.2% in October and November from the August-September period, the economy ministry said.
'The recovery process has lost momentum at the moment,' it added. Germany is working to pull out of its worst post-war recession, and the economy is forecast to have contracted by around 5% in 2009.
