A burst of early Christmas shopping boosted UK retailers in November, as consumers heeded warnings to buy gifts early to avoid being caught by stock shortages due to supply chain problems.
Retail sales volumes rose by 1.4 per cent from the previous month, faster than analysts had expected, and were 7.2 per cent above their February 2020 level, the Office for National Statistics said on Friday.
Sales over the three months to November were 0.6 per cent below the previous three month period, and 0.5 per cent higher than a year earlier.
The expansion was driven by month on month growth of 2 per cent in non-food sales — including clothes, toys, computers and jewellery — with retailers reporting strong trading around Black Friday and in the lead-up to Christmas. The ONS said clothes sales had risen above pre-pandemic levels for the first time, coming in 3.2 per cent above their February 2020 level.
The figures also reflected shoppers’ growing willingness to visit high streets in the weeks before the Omicron variant hit. The proportion of sales made online was the lowest since March 2020, at 26.9 per cent, and food store sales fell by 0.2 per cent month on month as people returned to eating out.
Samuel Tombs, at consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics, said retailers so far appeared “relatively unaffected” by Omicron, with footfall in the week to December 11 only 1 per cent lower than the previous week. But he noted that GfK’s index of consumer confidence, also published on Friday, showed sentiment well below the levels seen in the summer, reflecting “mounting pressure on households’ real incomes from high inflation”.
The monthly figures were boosted by a rebound in petrol sales due to a see saw effect, where motorists stockpiled fuel during September’s forecourt closures, then bought less than usual in October.