September storms boost high street sales
High street retailers were given a boost in September as the fierce storms at the end of the month prompted a rush to buy winter clothing.
After months of flat or negative growth, figures released in BDO’s September High Street Sales Tracker showed the best growth all year as like-for-like sales rose 3.5% in September.
Fashion sales increased by 3% year-on-year which was a marked turnaround from the 5.1% drop in like-for-like growth this time last year following 2011’s late heatwave.
Non-fashion grew by 7% year-on-year, driven by strong performances in gifting and leisure, beauty and luxury sales. Non-store sales recovered from an “Olympic lull”, growing by a third (32.5%) with the majority of retailers seeing double-digit growth.
The only category to miss out on the increase in spending was homewares, where sales fell 5.3% year-on-year as the housing market continued to struggle.
Don Williams, national head of retail and wholesale at BDO LLP, said: “These figures are being compared against a relatively weak 2011, but the predicted Olympic afterglow seems to have helped boost sales everywhere apart from homewares. The autumnal weather has certainly provided a welcome fillip for fashion sales too.
“Next month’s figures will give us a better idea of how strong the recovery is, but we expect growth to remain positive in the run up to Christmas.”
The BDO High Street Sales Tracker analysed like-for-like spending at non-grocery retailers with annual sales of between £5 million and £500 million.
