UK retail sales last month showed their weakest year-on-year growth for any December since 2008, by value rather than volume, industry figures have revealed.
The figures, published today by the British Retail Consortium, show the value of retail sales last month was up only one per cent on December 2013. This marked a sharp slowdown in year-on-year growth from 2.2 per cent in November, when sales were boosted by the Black Friday discounting frenzy.
However, the BRC noted the value of food sales had in December shown year-on-year growth for the first time since last April.
And it highlighted its estimate that shop prices in December were, overall, down by 1.7 per cent on the same month of 2013. On this basis, it calculated UK retail sales in December were up by a rounded 2.6 per cent in terms of volume, as opposed to value.
Edinburgh-based David McCorquodale, head of accountancy firm and BRC survey sponsor KPMG's UK retail sector practice, said: "Extensive discounting disrupted the timing and rhythm of Christmas spending. Between Black Friday and Boxing Day, retailers and consumers engaged in a three-week dance, each waiting for the other to take the lead, and as a result sales suffered."
He added: "It's now clear Black Friday did pull festive sales forward into November, and this created a challenging lull in spending with consumers waiting for future bargains. This situation did not reverse until the week of Christmas. The launch of Boxing Day sales mixed with new season full-price stock saw some phenomenal spending, with fashion retailers achieving double-digit [percentage] growth."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article