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)

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