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Trade News Archive 2009
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10th June 2009
Retail sales falter but online commerce remains strong
New figures have revealed that retail sales in Britain fell by 0.8 per cent on a like-for-like basis in May, signalling that the rise reported in April may have been an anomaly.
According to the British Retail Consortium, sales fell following the strong Easter period with clothing and footwear slipping while demand for big-ticket items such as furniture and homewares remained subdued.
Non-food, non-store sales - from the internet, mail-order and the phone - rose by 7.6 per cent in May compared to last year, however, BRC spokesperson Richard Dodd warned that even online commerce is not immune to the slowdown.
He said that year-on-year growth for this sector was at its lowest level in the past seven months.
"Of course it is still higher than store sales, but that is no surprise as we are still seeing the growth of online retail itself, which is the explanation," Mr Dodd noted.
"Some people get carried away with how online is undermining store sales, and that's nonsense. It is growing more rapidly, and is very gradually taking up a bigger share of total retail spending, but it is in a very small minority."
In April, the BRC's retail index showed a 4.6 per cent rise in life-for-like sales compared to the same month a year earlier.
(c) 2009
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