UK retail sales growth eases as Nov lockdown hits non-food sales

Growth in the U.K.’s retail sales softened in November as non-essential stores were forced to cease operations to comply with the four-week lockdown in England. However, online sales surged and were able to bring in the figures more than it did during the first lockdown in March, according to industry data released on Tuesday.

Year-on-year total retail sales growth softened to 0.9% in November from 4.9% in the previous month, tallying its weakest spending growth since its 5.9% drop in May, the British Retail Consortium reported.

On a good counter, a measure of like-for-like sales including online retail and stores which remained operational during the lockdown increased by 7.7% versus a year earlier, the biggest growth since June.

Non-essential stores and function venues had to shut down in Britain between Nov. 5 and Dec. 2 while the BRC data covered the Nov.1-28 period.

Barclaycard, which processes around half of British credit and debit card payments, reported consumer spending between Oct. 24 and Nov. 20 was 1.9% lower than a year earlier.