Yahoo Finance Lockdowns hit UK retail sales ahead of crucial festive period
Consumer spending in some sectors continued to flounder in November, as new restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus took effect, with a second lockdown in England and tightened measures across the rest of the UK.
That was the broad conclusion from data released by both the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Barclaycard on Tuesday.
The BRC-KPMG retail sales monitor for November found that over the three months to November, in-store sales of non-food items declined 18.6% on a total and 10.8% on a like-for-like basis.
This is better than the 12-month total average decline of 21.7%. For November, however, the like-for-like excluding temporarily closed stores remained in decline.
On a total basis, sales increased by 0.9% during the month, against a decline of 0.9% in November 2019.
It is below the three-month average growth of 3.9% and above the 12 month average decline of 0.3%.
Data also showed that UK retail sales increased 7.7% on a like-for-like basis from November 2019, when they had decreased 1.3% from the preceding year.
In November, like-for-like has been measured excluding temporarily closed stores but including online sales.
Food sales were a bright spot. Over the three months to November, they increased 6.4% on a like-for-like basis and 7.0% on a total basis. This is higher than the 12-month total average growth of 4.8%. For the month of November, food was in growth year-on-year.
Online non-food sales increased by 47.2% in November, against a growth of 0.3% in November 2019. This is above the three month average of 40.6% and the 12 month average of 33.2%.
Helen Dickinson OBE, CEO of the British Retail Consortium, said: “November saw the brakes put on the sales growth that had been seen over the previous three months.
“In-store non-food sales saw a significant decline as a result of the lockdown in England, however some retailers were able offset a proportion of lost sales through greater online and click-and-collect sales, ensuring they could still serve their customers.
“Despite sales remaining positive overall, parts of the industry continue to suffer. After two periods of prolonged closure, and continued low footfall in towns and city centres, many retailers face the stark reality of further job losses and store closures as a result of mounting rent bills and a return to full business rates liability from next April.”
Dickinson has urged the government to extend the moratorium on debt enforcement and target retailers who have been hardest hit by the pandemic with an extension of business rates relief beyond April next year.
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Barclaycard data told a similar story to that of the BRC, showing that consumer spending declined 1.9% in November as new restrictions took effect.
The data show that spending on essentials grew 4.9%, with a 17.9% rise in supermarket shopping offsetting a 23.8% decrease in fuel.
Alongside this, the largest declines at clothing and department stores seen since June contributed to non-essential spending falling 4.6%.
Festive shopping has given a welcome boost for some sectors, as online spend at specialist retailers was up 85.8%, a category which includes toy shops, jewellers and gift shops.
Social distancing restrictions continued to hamper the long-suffering hospitality sector, though, with steeper year-on-year declines at restaurants (-56.7%) and pubs & bars (-56.3%) than were seen in October (which recorded contractions of 32.7% and 13.5% respectively).
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