British Retail Consortium data for May 2023:
- retail sales growth slowed to a seven-month low in May
- BRC says spending in its members’ stores increased 3.9% y/y compared with the 5.2% growth y/y in April
- retail sales in May were 3.7% higher on the year on a like-for-like basis, from 5.2% in April
- “The wild card for the retail sector remains uncontrollable food inflation , which shows little sign of coming down in the near future, and this is having a significant knock-on effect on non-essential spending,” said Paul Martin, UK head of retail at accountants KPMG, who sponsor the data.
Separate data from BarclayCard
- consumer spending on payment cards rose by 3.6% y/y in May
- “Although the latest headline figures show that inflation has fallen due to lower energy prices, the prices of core services and goods remain stubbornly high and continue to constrain real household disposable income and spending,”
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Like-for-like sales data strips out the impact of changes in store size.