UK retail sales flat-line, consumers stockpile food for Brexit - Surveys

According to the latest surveys by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Barclaycard, the UK retail sales are seen flat-lining in August amid a dip in the demand for non-essentials and some households stockpiled food ahead of Brexit.

Key Findings:

“Annual total sales growth fell to zero from the weakest July rise on record of 0.3%, the British Retail Consortium, which groups major high-street chains and supermarkets, said.

That pushed down the average pace of sales growth over the past 12 months to 0.4%, the weakest since the BRC began its data collection in 1995.

The BRC showed that in like-for-like terms, which strips out changes in retail space, sales were down 0.5% compared with August 2018, their fifth fall in the first eight months of 2019.

Barclaycard also said it saw signs of concern about Brexit among consumers.

The payments card firm reported monthly consumer spending growth of 1.3% - sharply slower than growth of 4.5% in August last year.

Spending at discount stores bucked the trend and rose by 8.0%, a sign of the cautious mood of many consumers.

A survey commissioned by Barclaycard showed almost one in five respondents was stockpiling everyday items in case of shortages in the future. Tinned foods, household supplies and dried goods topped the list of stockpiled products, it said.”