The latest figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) showed that retail sales increased by 1% year on year in August, against a growth of 4.1% in August 2023.
“Consumer sentiment is gradually starting to improve, but there still remains some nervousness around potential tax rises and the cost of putting the heating back on when the cooler weather arrives,” says Linda Ellett, UK head of consumer, retail and leisure at KPMG.
“The fragile nature of consumer confidence means shoppers will continue to be driven by price and value, moving from brand to brand to find the best price benefit and we are likely to see retailers using promotional activity to seek to win at this.”
BIRA’s ceo, Andrew Goodacre, added: “Encouraging sales trends in August across all categories give us hope that this is a sign of things to come. No doubt a spell of good weather helped, but it could also be that consumer confidence is slowly returning.
“However, we must remember that higher sales do not always mean higher profits, as we know that many retailers are discounting heavily to move stock.Retailers are sacrificing margins, and that cannot continue in the long term. The high street remains a challenging place to do business, and we urge the Chancellor to retain the retail discount at 75% to give hard-pressed retailers more confidence to invest in growing their part of the economy.”
Top: Warm weather in August saw total UK retail sales increased by 1% year on year, with consumer confidence slowly returning.
