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Retail sales in November fell short despite Black Friday efforts
Paul Martin, UK Head of Retail at KPMG, said:
“With the clock ticking down to Christmas, sales growth in November remained weak at 2.7%, despite a big push from retailers around Black Friday deals.
Food and drink, health, personal care, and beauty categories continued to drive growth whilst jewellery and watches saw the biggest decline in sales on the high street, suggesting consumers are abandoning expensive presents in favour of more budget friendly gifting. Online sales fell yet again, but penetration rates rose by 5% on October to 41.5% as consumers shopped around for Black Friday bargains.
With less than a month to go and sales growth limping along, the cost-of-living crisis has taken its toll on Christmas spending for many households, and the continued economic conditions are testing consumer resilience. Price remains the main purchasing driver, so we are likely to see a prolonged and well targeted period of discounting as retailers compete hard for a shrinking pool of spend and will need to clear stock.
With two of the three months of the crucial golden quarter seeing sales growth below 3%, it has already been a weak Christmas trading period. Any excess stock not sold before Christmas could be further reduced leading to big January sales, and potentially having an even greater impact on already tight margins. As we look to the first few months of 2024, we can expect the challenges to continue which could lead to further casualties in the sector, particularly pure online players facing more than 28 months of consecutive sales decline.”
The BRC KPMG Retail sales monitor is one of the UK’s most timely, and accurate performance indicators for UK sales. Read the full report complete with sales data from the British Retail Consortium.
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