Christmas high street sales fall for fifth year in a row - BDO

High street sales in December were lower than the previous year, with clothing and footwear suffering the most.

Like-for-like sales at UK shops fell 2.3% in December, the BDO High Street Sales Tracker revealed on Friday, despite a last-minute shopping surge in the week leading up to Christmas. This was the fifth successive December to record negative sales growth.

Later figures released by BDO covering the week after Christmas showed total like-for-like sales down 3.84%, with footfall down 10.3% on the same period a year before, with retail parks footfall down 8.3% and shopping centres down 10.8%.

Looking at the whole of December, fashion retailers saw sales stumble 3.8% lower in the month, even compared to a depressed December the previous year. As Next's update revealed earlier in the week, weak store sales for some retailer may have been rescued by a stronger performance online.

Homewares sales grew by 2.5% in December, but lifestyle goods struggled for growth with a rise of just 0.3%.

The first three weeks of December delivered negative like-for-like sales growth compared to a year earlier, before a spree in the week leading up to Christmas Eve saw all categories record growth.

Non-store sales grew 21.4% during December, as Next indicated, with a weekly peak of 39.8% in the week before Christmas.

Non-store sales in the week up to Christmas Eve surged 39.8% year-on-year but fell away to just 6.4% the following week.

Christmas had been a question of economics for consumers, said Sophie Michael, BDO's head of retail and wholesale.

“The level of disposable income has been gradually falling in 2017 as inflation has now overtaken wage growth. With discretionary spend under pressure, shoppers have been forced to think twice before making their purchases and have shown a preference to prioritise spend on food and drink, home comforts and trips out to restaurants and bars this festive season,” she said.

“Consumer confidence is low, and shoppers have exercised extreme caution or shopped strategically online, rather than visiting bricks-and-mortar stores or making impulse purchases. As such retailers, and in particular fashion retailers, have felt a fall in footfall and consumer spend.”

“Early reports indicate that post-Christmas sales are not particularly promising with Boxing Day expected to show the biggest decline in footfall since 2012. This will be of concern for those retailers who are struggling to find that crucial mix of product, price and in-store experience to attract the shrinking consumer purse.”