UK Retail Sales Beats Forecasts For September
Important Headlines
- UK Retail Sales Beat Forecasts: Rise by 0.3% in September 2024
- Inflation was a miss across the board
- decline in latest unemployment figures
- This data does not change the Bank of England bigger picture
UK Retail Sales
On Friday 18th October 2024, the Office for National Statistics released the latest UK retail sales which beat forecasts and have risen by 0.3% in September 2024.
Overview
UK Retail sales volumes (quantity bought) are estimated to have risen by 0.3% in September 2024, following a rise of 1.0% in August 2024 (unrevised from our last publication).
Computers and telecommunications retailers grew strongly but were partly offset by decreases in supermarkets.
Looking at the quarter, sales volumes rose by 1.9% in Quarter 3 (Jul to Sept) 2024, when compared with Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2024.
UK Retail sales in September
Sales volumes show sustained growth in September 2024
Volume sales, seasonally adjusted, Great Britain, September 2021 to September 2024
The chart shows the quantity bought in retail sales over time, for both the rolling three-month-on-three-month and the month-on-month movement.
Sales volumes rose by 0.3% during September 2024 following a 1.0% rise in August 2024. In September, sales volumes were at their highest index levels since July 2022. During the year to September 2024, sales volumes rose by 3.9%, the largest annual rise since February 2022.
When compared with their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level in February 2020, volumes were down by 0.2%.
More broadly, there was a 1.9% rise during the period from July to September 2024 (Quarter 3) when compared with the three months to June 2024 (Quarter 2), the joint largest, shared with March 2024, since July 2021. This quarterly rise was across all main sectors. When comparing with the same period last year, there was a 2.6% rise, the largest since March 2022. These data are available in our Retail Sales Index datasets.
The reporting period for this bulletin covers 25 August 2024 to 28 September 2024.
Retail sector volumes
Non-food stores sales volumes – the total of department, clothing, household and other non-food stores – rose by 2.5% in September 2024, following a rise of 0.6% in August.
The strongest sub-sector growth was from other non-food stores, which rose by 5.5% over the month to September 2024. Within “other non-food”, computer and telecommunications retailers had the strongest contribution to growth.
Partly offsetting this, supermarkets sales volumes fell by 2.4% during the month to September 2024, leading to the largest month-on-month fall for food stores this year. Comments from retailers pointed to unseasonably poor weather and consumers continuing to cut back on luxury food items.
Online retail values
The amount spent online, known as “online spending values”, rose by 1.3% during September 2024, and by 6.7% compared with September 2023.
Total spend – the sum of in-store and online sales – rose by 0.1% over the month. As a result, the proportion of sales made online increased from 27.5% in August 2024 (revised down from 27.6%) to 27.7% in September 2024.
