{"id":6168,"date":"2019-01-10T03:09:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T03:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/worst-christmas-for-retailers-in-a-decade-says-brc\/"},"modified":"2019-01-10T03:09:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T03:09:43","slug":"worst-christmas-for-retailers-in-a-decade-says-brc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/worst-christmas-for-retailers-in-a-decade-says-brc\/","title":{"rendered":"Worst Christmas for retailers in a decade, says BRC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n There were a number of discounts in stores in the run-up to Christmas
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Retail sales were flat in December, as UK businesses experienced their worst Christmas in a decade, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).<\/p>\n

Total retail sales showed 0% year-on-year growth during the month, the worst December performance since 2008.<\/p>\n

The BRC said price cuts appeared not to have been enough to encourage shoppers.<\/p>\n

A separate report from Barclaycard said consumer spending grew 1.8% year-on-year in December, the lowest rate of growth seen since March 2016.<\/p>\n

Esme Harwood, director at Barclaycard, said: “Growth in consumer spending dropped to its lowest level since 2016 and represents a decline in real terms.”<\/p>\n

She added that consumers “remain cautious amidst ongoing economic uncertainty”.<\/p>\n

‘Mounting costs’<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “Squeezed consumers chose not to splash out this Christmas, with retail sales growth stalling for the first time in 28 months.<\/p>\n

“The worst December sales performance in 10 years means a challenging start to 2019 for retailers, with business rates set to rise once again this year, and the threat of a no-deal Brexit looming ever larger.”<\/p>\n

The BRC said that on a like-for-like basis, UK retail sales decreased by 0.7% from December 2017.<\/p>\n

Ms Dickinson said the retail landscape was “changing dramatically” in the UK, while the trading environment remained tough.<\/p>\n

She added: “Retailers are facing up to this challenge, but are having to wrestle with mounting costs from a succession of government policies – from the apprenticeship levy, to higher wage costs, to rising business rates.” <\/p>\n

And Paul Martin, UK head of retail at KPMG, said retail sales had stagnated despite some retailers’ best efforts to generate sales through price cuts.<\/p>\n

“Growth in food did provide a glimmer of hope, being among the few categories to notice an uptick,” he added.<\/p>\n

“However, the continued contrast in performance between the High Street and online remained evident in December – albeit 2018 did also see a continued slowdown in online retail sales.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption There were a number of discounts in stores in the run-up to Christmas Retail sales were flat in December, as UK businesses experienced their worst Christmas in a decade, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC). Total retail sales showed 0% year-on-year growth during the month, the worst December … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}