Black Friday ‘killing’ high street rush at Christmas

THE Christmas rush is in danger of becoming a thing of the past after figures showed that shoppers bought less in December than November.

Experts say the arrival of Black Friday has corrupted traditional shopping patterns, bringing a ‘fundamental’ shift in spending to November and fuelling the huge switch to online shopping.

There was a 0.9 per cent fall in both the amount spent and the quantity bought in December compared with the previous month, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

Richard Lim, chief executive of analysts Retail Economics, said the figures confirm that Christmas was ‘an extremely challenging period’ for the retail industry. ‘It’s becoming apparent the festive period is increasingly transitioning towards the online channel,’ he said. ‘What’s more, Black Friday has fundamentally shifted the distribution of sales in the run-up to Christmas.’

Online retailing accounted for 20 per cent of spending in the month – up by 13.9 per cent on December 2017.

The drop in December was evidence of a wider slowdown in spending at the end of the year, which retail experts attributed to failing consumer confidence linked to uncertainty around Brexit and concerns about personal debt. The ONS said there was a fall of 0.1 per cent in the amount spent and 0.2 per cent in the quantity bought over the final three months of 2018 compared to the previous three months.

Pablo Shah, of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said consumer spending growth is expected to slow to 1.4 per cent in 2019, from 1.7 per cent in 2018. He added: ‘That spending has been so subdued despite record employment is a testament to the suffocating effect that Brexit uncertainty has had on consumers.’

Failing consumer confidence