Retail

UK retail sales growth slows; strong performance in clothing: BRC

08 Sep '21

2 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

UK retail sales increased by 3 per cent in August this year against a growth of 3.9 per cent in the same month last year, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), which today said this is below the three-month average growth of 6.9 per cent and the 12-month average growth of 10.3 per cent. Sales grew by 8.9 per cent during August compared with the same month in 2019.

Retailers, however, reported a strong performance in clothing, with increasing demand for formal wear, driven by the return to office working and social events.

Retail sales in the country increased 1.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis from August 2020, when they had increased by 4.7 per cent from the preceding year. This is below the three-month average growth of 4.5 per cent and the 12-month average growth of 10.9 per cent.

Over the three months to August, in-store sales of non-food items grew by 23.7 per cent on a total basis. This was slightly above the 12-month average growth of 21.7 per cent. On a two-year basis, stores saw a decline of 3.5 per cent over the last three months.

Over the three-months to August, non-food retail sales increased by 10.3 per cent on a total basis and by 6.8 per cent on a like-for-like basis. This is below the 12-month total average growth of 14.4 per cent. On a two-year basis, non-food sales saw a growth of 11.9 per cent for the three-months to August.

Online non-food sales decreased by 4.6 per cent in August compared to a growth of 42.4 per cent in August 2020. This is below the three-month average decline of 3.5 per cent, BRC said in a press release.

Non-food online penetration rate decreased to 38.3 per cent this August from 42 per cent in the same month last year.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

More British Retail Consortium News... More Retail News - United Kingdom...