High street given a lift as retail sales recover
RETAIL sales staged a recovery last month but remain below pre-pandemic levels, the Office for National Statistics confirmed yesterday.
Sales by volume – the amount of goods bought – rose 0.6 per cent between September and October.
However, experts said this was due to September’s sales being down because of the Queen’s funeral, when many retailers closed or operated differently on the extra bank holiday.
Volume sales over the past three months fell by 2.4 per cent and are 0.6 per cent lower than they were in February 2020, before the Covid crisis.
Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: “Retail sales continue their downward trend seen since summer 2021.”
Sales by value rose by 1.8 per cent between September and October, and by 4.8 per cent on a year ago. However, those increases have been driven by retailers putting up their prices to recover a surge in costs.
With Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announcing tax hikes in this week’s Autumn Statement and the country entering recession, the retail sector faces a tough time ahead, experts say. Helen Dickinson, of the British Retail Consortium, said: “Retailers are hoping sales will pick up a little as the World Cup and festive season approaches, but there is little chance of them catching up with current double-digit inflation.”
One saving grace for the high street is the return of shoppers from online during the depths of the Covid pandemic to physical stores. The proportion of retail sales online, while higher than before the pandemic, continued to fall back.
Richard Lim, of Retail Economics, said: “Consumers feel more in control of their budgets in a physical environment, looking for end-of-aisle discounts and keeping a tighter grip on finances.”