UK retailers suffer worst sales month for seven years
UK retail sales in August were the weakest since the financial crisis, with a BDO survey showing a massive 4.3% drop compared to the same month last year.
Food & Drug Retailers
4,067.77
12:30 08/05/24
General Retailers
3,994.46
12:20 08/05/24
BDO's research found that most parts of the high street suffered as the summer rains swept in, with sales of fashion falling 5.5%, homewares knocked 3.3% lower and lifestyle goods down 1.3% year-on-year.
But not only were brick and mortar stores affected, online sales also saw their lowest ever like-for-like growth since BDO's monthly High Street Sales Tracker began, though this still represented 11.4% growth year-on-year.
“The strength of the pound has encouraged Brits to spend more abroad rather than in the UK,” said Sophie Michael, head of retail and wholesale at BDO, who added that the high street was losing out as UK consumers opted to spend their disposable income on leisure pursuits, eating out and holidays.
However, the cold and wet weather should encourage autumn and winter shopping, which was proved with fashion retailers enjoying better sales in the final week of the month.
“With the holiday season over and the summer weather starting to fade, retailers will be hoping this is the start of a shopping spree that sees them into the autumn season and beyond," Michael added. "Retailers likely to benefit in the coming months are those with the right product, at the right price with aligned multi channels.”
However, this is slightly contradicted by the weekly high street sales index also assembled by BDO, although it excludes online sales. This showed fashion store sales were poor in recent weeks, with overall fashion store LFL sales down by 2.6% in the last week - albeit that was actually the best performance for 6 weeks.
Overall BDO said LFL store sales, including around 20 homewares and lifestyle retailers were down by 2.2%, but total non-store sales including some online-only retailers picked up to increase by 19.1%.