British retail sales climbed beyond forecasts in July, propelled by favourable weather conditions and the UEFA Women's Euros 2025 tournament.
Nevertheless, comprehensive revisions to earlier monthly data have unveiled a less erratic but fundamentally weaker growth trajectory for the year, as reported by .
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) today published its latest figures, demonstrating that sales volumes in July increased by 0.6 per cent compared with June.
This surpassed economists' predictions of a 0.2 per cent increase in a Reuters poll. However, the annual growth rate fell short of expectations at 1.1 per cent.
The ONS clarified that the publication of the figures, which was postponed for two weeks, resulted from the identification of "quality failures" in its data.
The statistics organisation discovered issues with synchronising its survey periods with calendar months, which had previously exaggerated the volatility of retail sales.
James Benford, ONS director of economic statistics, said: "Our annual review of how we adjust for seasonality found that we had not adjusted figures correctly. This resulted in our previous figures overstating the monthly volatility in retail sales in the first half of the year."
He added that "the new figures published today show a similar overall pattern of three-month on three-month growth, but with less volatile month-on-month changes".
Mixed signals for the º£½ÇÊÓƵ high street
Whilst the monthly figures offered some encouragement for retailers, they failed to reverse a wider declining trend. The volume of goods purchased declined by 0.6 per cent in the three months to July compared with the preceding three-month period.
This represents a distinct end to the four months of consecutive expansion witnessed earlier in the year.
The favourable monthly outcome was primarily attributed to robust performance in the non-store and clothing segments.
Shop owners credited the increase to fresh product launches, clement weather conditions, and momentum from the UEFA Women's Euros 2025 tournament.
The British Retail Consortium noted that expenditure at its member stores rose 2.5 per cent in cash terms during July, driven by purchases of summer garments and food throughout the º£½ÇÊÓƵ's fifth-warmest July on record. Nevertheless, the organisation cautioned of "difficult decisions' ahead:"
"Unfortunately, this level of sales growth makes little dent on the £7 billion of new costs that retailers are having to shoulder following last year's Budget. With a date now sent for the next Budget, government must ensure that no additional tax is levied on retailers, or else many will be forced to make difficult decisions around raising prices, store closures, and jobs."
The downward adjustments to historical retail sales data will also impact the º£½ÇÊÓƵ's GDP figures, though the complete ramifications will not emerge until the quarterly national accounts are released later this month.
