Online sales in August grew the fastest this year making up for a weak July when sales stalled for many amid the heatwave.
Sales in the month grew 15 per cent, according to the British Retail Consortium's monthly sales monitor. The rise compared to a weak July when consumers took the opportunity to go outside and shop at physical stores during the hot weather sapping internet sales.
It also compared to a slow period last year when, at 4.8 per cent, August saw the lowest online growth ever recorded by the monitor when many were shoppers were otherwise occupied by the Olympics.
Total retail sales on and offline remained high at 3.6 per cent compared to the bumper July, the best July since 2006, when sales increased 3.9 per cent.
'August’s online growth was always going to be strong in comparison with last year, when the Olympics had distracted shoppers from browsing and online sales had recorded their worst ever growth. It lived up to expectations with the best month since July 2012 bar Christmas,' the BRC said in a statement.
But the monitor also drew attention to the long-term troubles faced by physical shop owners. It said: 'Excluding online sales, Clothing and Footwear sales were actually in slight decline in August and in 'Other Non-Food' [electricals, DIY, toys, stationery etc], over a third of the growth came from online purchases. Our figures suggest that non-store sales added 1.1 percentage points to UK non-food growth in August 2013.'
David McCorquodale, head of retail at accountancy firm KPMG which partners the BRC to produce the monitor, said: 'This is a solid performance by retailers and demonstrates that confidence is slowly but surely returning to the UK’s high streets. Such a retail revival is particularly welcome after the disappointing sales seen last summer, when sales of non-food items ground to a halt as people were distracted by the Olympic Games. If sales continue in this vein we should be optimistic that retailers will enjoy a reasonably healthy Christmas.'
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