Retail sales staged a bigger-than-expected bounce-back last month as shoppers returned to the high street after a weather-hit January, according to official figures.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said sales volumes rose 1.7% month on month in February, smashing forecasts for sales to edge 0.5% higher.
It comes after a disappointing January, with the ONS revealing that sales fell even more than first thought, down by 2% against an initial estimate for a 1.5% decline.
Even stripping out the often volatile changes from month to month, sales were 1.6% higher in the three months to the end of February compared with the previous three-month period - the highest since August last year.
Experts said the figures boosted hopes for another robust performance from the economy in the first quarter, easing fears that the extreme wet weather and flooding knocked the recovery off track.
Alan Clarke, director at Scotiabank, said the figures showed retail sales "are flying".
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