This follows a decline of 0.9% in retail gross sales quantity for October, which was revised up from a 1.1% decline beforehand. The year-on-year estimate for November reveals that UK retail gross sales are actually 0.6% increased in comparison with the identical month a 12 months in the past. Nevertheless, that could be a marked miss on estimates of +1.6% with the month-to-month studying lacking on estimates of a achieve of 0.3%.
Trying on the breakdown, meals retailer gross sales (-0.5%) as soon as once more confirmed a decline whereas non-store retailing (-2.9%) was an enormous drag for the month. In the meantime, different non-food retailer gross sales (-0.8%) additionally confirmed a modest decline in November.
All of that’s considerably offset by stronger gross sales in textile clothes and footwear shops (+1.7%) in addition to family items retailer gross sales (+1.8%) – seemingly attributed to longer Black Friday discounting.
Referring to that, it serves as a great reminder that UK retail gross sales for November 2024 didn’t embody the influence of Black Friday. That spilled over into the December 2024 reporting interval. As such, that makes the year-on-year displaying right here even much less enthusiastic. ONS notes that “when Black Friday falls into the November interval there’s usually a bigger month-to-month rise in November than in both October or December”.
