FXStreet (Mumbai) – The ONS will report UK retail sales figure today. Retail sales figures can be expected to record month-on-month gain of 0.5% in November, up from the -0.6 per cent decline in October. Retail sales in November have primarily been boosted by Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) head of policy and external affairs David Martin observed “Promotions stimulated sales in of cosmetic products and electrical items, as household get ready for Christmas, while consumers continued to spend on big ticket items like furniture.”
However, year on year retail sales have probably decline to 3 per cent from 3.8 per cent. Analysts at HSBC are of the opinion that sales during Black Friday cannot be expected to be as strong as sales during the same period last year as discounting has been less. The foot fall in stores has been reported to be lower than last year. Online shopping could have been a reason for lower footfall.
Heavy discounting by US firms on the first day after Thanksgiving had resulted in huge unmanageable crowd last year at the stores. It is likely that shoppers this time chose online shopping over visiting the stores. Internet shopping is believed to have risen at the end of November and most sales were recorded in the electrical goods category. However, even if that has been the case, sales figures cannot be expected to be significantly big as non-store retailing accounts for just 7% of retail sales.
KPMG for the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) feels consumers had held back on purchases early in the month hoping to get lucrative “Black Friday” bargains. This is another factor that hurt overall retail sales figures last month
When compared to November 2014, retail sales figure will likely show a decline of 2.3 per cent. Food sales were however up once online purchases were included. Non-food sales also grew but only by 0.4% after adjustments were made for online shopping. David Martin from SRC said “The six month rolling average reached 0.7%, its highest level since November 2014, suggestive of non-food sales gathering momentum ahead of Christmas.
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)