Online Sales Rise 8.3%, Says BRC

The British Retail Consortium said this morning that online sales rose 8.3 per cent in April in what was a very slow month for retailers. 

The rise compares to a 0.6 per cent decline in total UK retail sales last month and a 9 per cent rise in online sales in the same period last year. 

Total sales figures for April, adjusted for 0.4 per cent inflation, fell 1 per cent and over the three months, which irons out the impact of a shifting Easter, growth was 1.6 per cent.

Last month the BRC, which includes all non store sales including phone and mail order, said online sales increased by just 6.6 per cent. That compared to an 11.5 per cent increase reported by the Office of National Statistics. Both figures represent non-grocery spending.

Comment: it is worth mentioning that the BRC figures are beginning to look a little low compared to other sources. Two other measures for March, both of which track a wider spend than just store sales, showed even higher figures. 

Firstly, Barclaycard said the increase in spending it tracked, about half of all online sales, said the rise was 12 per cent. Secondly, the internet retailing association the IMRG said the increase was 13 per cent. We'll keep you updated when these other figures are released for April. 

We're tempted to say that the ONS figure is the best measure of pure 'online' retailing. The reality is that all the figures tell us something (the IMRG includes holiday and flight spending in its figures, for example, as we suspect does Barclaycard) and over the coming weeks we'll try to dissect exactly what we can and cannot see from each of the figures..