British Retail Consortium (BRC) data for December 2024:
Total sales +3.2% y/y, biggest jump since March 2024
- November was -3.3%
- Note that Black Friday fell in the BRC’s December 2024 and November 2023 periods, skewing year-on-year comparisons.
Like-for-like sales +3.1% y/y
summary:
- Black Friday boosted retail sales at the end of 2024, with a 3.2% year-over-year increase in December after a 3.3% decline the previous month.
- However, quarterly sales growth was only 0.4%, indicating a decline in volume when inflation is taken into account.
- Retail sales for the whole year rose modestly by 0.7%.
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The British retail consortium attributed the poor performance to weak consumer confidence and economic challenges, with tax increases under the new Labor government.
- Separately, data from Barclays cards showed steady December spending, with a drop in staples offset by a modest rise in non-essentials, including a 52% jump in cinema spending driven by films like Wicked. Economists predict stronger consumer spending in 2025 due to the expected growth of real wages and higher savings of the population.
BRC like-for-like sales is a metric published by the British Retail Consortium to measure changes in retail sales, excluding the impact of new store openings or closures.
- It reflects sales results only in stores that have been open for at least a year, providing a clearer view of underlying trends in consumer spending without distortion due to changes in the retail space. This metric is widely used to evaluate the performance of retailers in comparable, established locations, making it a reliable indicator of actual sales growth or decline.