As Scottish retailers embarked on a major round of price-busting sales yesterday, the latest sales figures provided some consolation for businesses.
As Scottish retailers embarked on a major round of price-busting sales yesterday, the latest sales figures provided some consolation for businesses.
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed that although trade on the UK's high streets continued to slow, last month was surprisingly resilient.
Between September and October, retail sales declined by just 0.1%, against forecasts for a 0.9% decline. Year-on-year, sales rose by 1.9%, against forecasts for 1.4% growth.
The figures come at a time when many retailers have opted to hold pre-Christmas sales in a bid to boost spending at what should be their busiest time of year.
Marks & Spencer cut prices in its clothing and homeware departments by 20% for one day only yesterday, its first one-day sale for more than three years.
Other retailers, including Dorothy Perkins, Burtons, Debenhams, Gap and John Lewis, are also cutting prices.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said the figures failed "to convey how tough conditions are for customers and retailers".
Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, said: "Given customers and retailers are being squeezed by a whole range of costs, and consumer confidence at record lows, few retailers are telling me consumers are spending more."
He added: "The boss of a leading retailer told me things haven't been this bad since the early 1990s."
Retail analysts said the figures would continue to cause alarm, with non-essential spending on items such as clothing and household goods hit particularly hard.
Against the previous month, the value of food sales rose by 1%, but in the non-food sector total sales values were down 1.2%, with household goods down 2.9% and textile, clothing and footwear showing a decline of 1.8%. This suggests firms reduced prices in an attempt to boost sales.
Vicky Redwood, at Capital Economics, said household goods and clothing had "nose dived".
She said: "What's more, anecdotal evidence suggests that the past couple of weeks have been even more shocking for retailers, as illustrated by the rash of price discounting announced this week."
Ms Redwood said falling inflation and interest rates would provide some relief to household budgets.
"But with unemployment rising sharply, house prices falling and credit becoming less available, we think that spending has much further to fall," she said. "It's shaping up to be a pretty awful Christmas for retailers."
However, Mr Robertson said there could be a silver lining for the shrewd shopper. "This is a great time to pick up a bargain for Christmas," he said.
He said the ONS figures - showing October's total sales values up 3.2% on a year ago - were "in stark contrast" to the 0.1% fall shown by the BRC's research.
There were falls in non-specialist shops, such as department stores, while the decline in household goods sales was the largest since November 2005.
Marks & Spencer saw like-for-like sales fall 6.1% in the 13 weeks to September 27, while Arcadia Group, the owner of such retailers as Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Burtons, experienced a 2.8% drop from 2007.
Earlier this month, the Bank of England cut interest rates to 3% from 4.5% in the hope of putting more money in consumers' pockets and encouraging them to spend.
Yesterday Downing Street said that the latest figures underlined the need for the government to take action to bolster the economy, with a package of tax cuts and increased borrowing to be announced in the Pre-Budget Report on Monday.
