UK retail sales fall 1.4% in May

According to Reuters, as the epidemic situation eased, more and more British people began to dine out and shop, and UK retail sales fell by 1.4% in May , but increased by 1.6% month-on-month and 24.6% year-on-year .

According to data released by the Office for National Statistics , only three of the 19 retail industries surveyed showed a significant decline, among which food retail was hit the hardest, with sales falling 5.7% as more Britons chose to eat out instead of cooking at home.

The UK National Statistics Office also stated : Hotels have relaxed restrictions and people have begun to consume again in restaurants, bars and other places, which has greatly affected the food retail industry.

In addition, sales data released by Tesco, the largest retail store and supermarket chain in the UK , on ​​Friday showed that the supermarket's sales grew very slowly in the UK in the first quarter.

But homeware retailers resisted the downward pressure, with homewares sales up 9.0% month-on-month . The Office for National Statistics attributed this entirely to a surge in demand for outdoor products , and earlier this week , car and outdoor goods store Halfords said the bicycle industry has always performed well.

Overall, the UK's retail industry has been on a downward trend in the past two months, but most economists say that weak retail data does not necessarily mean that the British people's consumption level is declining. After all, the hotel industry has seen a great boom .

However, Pantheon Macroeconomics, a consulting firm , disagrees with this view. One of its staff members said that a large amount of recent payment data showed that shoppers' enthusiasm for consumption may be gradually losing. He said : Due to employment pressure and inflation factors, it is expected that the real disposable income of British households will decline in the fourth quarter .

In addition, the emergence of the "Delta" variant virus is likely to disrupt the current calm again . Although the UK has quickly introduced vaccines, British household spending will also be affected in the coming weeks. For example, the lockdown in England, which was originally scheduled to end on Monday, has been postponed to four weeks later.

We hope that merchants on the UK site will pay close attention to the trends in the UK retail industry, flexibly adjust their strategies, and make reasonable layouts.

U.K.

Retail

May