Retail sales “flatlined” in August despite the food and drink sector benefitting from good weather over the bank holiday weekend.
The BRC – KPMG Retail Sales Monitor showed that retail sales had fallen 0.5% on a like-for-like basis compared with the same month a year ago. Meanwhile, total sales were flat against an increase of 1.3% in August last year.
Food sales decreased 0.3% on a like-for-like basis over the three months to August but increased 0.5% on a total basis.
Helen Dickinson Chief Executive of BRC said: “Greater economic and political uncertainty has driven down consumer demand. While the summer weather gave a small boost to food sales, this was cancelled out by a drop in non-food sales.
“Summer discounting and poor footfall have hit in-store sales particularly hard. If the Government wants to avoid seeing further store closures and job losses on the UK high street, they must take action.”
Paul Martin, UK Retail Partner at KPMG, commented: “It’s clear that for much of the retail market, efforts are being focussed on preservation, not growth, in this adverse and uncertain climate….With a budgetary Spending Review, the Brexit crunch point looming and potentially a general election on the cards, it’s clear that the only thing that is certain in the coming months is further uncertainty.”
Susan Barratt, Chief Executive of IGD, added: “Food and grocery sales moved back into positive territory in August with year on year growth, thanks considerably to the approaching Bank Holiday heatwave. As August progressed, the October Brexit deadline received increasing attention but only 3% of shoppers say they’ve begun to build stocks for this purpose: not enough to show through in the total sector sales.”
