Retail sales in the UK increased by 0.4% in February, compared with January, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported yesterday. Non-food stores were the largest contributor towards the increase seen in February, for the quantity bought and amount spent, both at 0.4%. Year-on-year growth in the quantity of retail sales in February increased by 4% but online sales fell to 17.6%, compared with 18.8% reported in January. This represents a year-on-year increase of 9.4%, when compared to February 2018. Online sales in department stores grew 1.1% year on year, but fell 22.8% in February when compared to the previous month.
Meanwhile, online sales in textile, clothing and footwear stores were up 6.4% year on year, while month on month growth declined 22.5% in February. Commenting on the retail sales figures, ONS head of retail sales Rhian Murphy said: “Retail sales continued to bounce back in the three months to February with strong increases in fuel sales and online shopping.”
Responding to the latest ONS retail sales figures, Rachel Lund, head of insight and analytics at the British Retail Consortium, said: ”Retail sales were fairly sluggish in February. Food sales growth was particularly hard hit, in part due to consumers buying extra provisions in February 2018 before the arrival of the ‘Beast from the East’. Non-food sales were more robust, offering some relief for those retailers.
“With business rates due to rise once again on 1 April, retailers will see their already tight margins squeezed further. Unless government takes action to reform the broken business-rates system we may see a repeat of 2018, where many household names disappeared from our high streets.”
Back in Brussels last night – following hours of talks, the EU both scrapped the 29th March Brexit date and threw out May’s proposed delay plans. Instead, the EU handed down a new deadline: 12th April. If May’s Brexit deal faces a third defeat in the Commons next week, the government will have until this date to devise an alternative plan or face a no-deal exit. If the PM manages to pass her deal, the UK will remain in the EU until 22nd May, allowing time for the withdrawal legislation to be ratified.
