Retail sales have worst decline ever, says BRC
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has reported that retail sales fell by their largest monthly margin since records began in 1996.
The BRC said that total sales fell by 1.9 per cent on March 2010, although that was partly down to the busy Easter trading weekend falling in March last year. Like-for-like sales fell by 3.5 per cent, the worst level since 2005.
Footwear showed the only area of growth in the report but food and drink, clothing and electrical sales all fell and home and furniture purchases suffered the most. Even internet sales, which had been bucking the high street trend, grew at their smallest rate since records started in 2008.
Stephen Robertson, Director General of the BRC said: "This is the worst drop in total sales since we first collected these figures in 1995. Non-food retailers were particularly hard-hit. This is strong evidence of the pressure customers and traders are under. This year's later Easter is a factor but this fall goes way beyond anything that can be explained by that alone.
Today, (April 12th) saw the Office for National Statistics (ONS) release its inflation report for March which unveiled surprisingly good figures that showed inflation fell to four per cent, but the last few weeks have seen a succession of poor trading figures from retailers such as HMV, Currys, Next and Mothercare that back-up the latest retail figures released by the BRC today.
Stephen Robertson said: "Uncomfortably high inflation and low wage growth have produced the first year-on-year fall in disposable incomes for thirty years. Mounting fuel and utility costs, falling house prices, higher VAT and the prospect of more tax rises and job losses left people unwilling to spend unless they really had to.”
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