Copy article

Retail sales data - August 2022

ended 16. September 2022

This morning, the retail sales data for August was published. Key points below, but the main takeaway is that sales are dropping amid the cost of living crisis. How are things for you as a retailer? Are customers spending less? If so, what are you doing to address this? If you have a physical premises, are your energy bills skyrocketing? Just how confident are you right now? Any thoughts, send them across ASAP for the chance to appear in the media today. No need for an essay. Just 1-2 paragraphs will do it.

  • Retail sales volumes fell by 1.6% in August 2022, continuing a downward trend since summer 2021 following the lifting of restrictions on hospitality; in recent months, rising prices and cost of living are also affecting sales volumes.
  • All main sectors (food stores, non-food stores, non-store retailing and fuel) fell over the month; this last happened in July 2021, when all legal restrictions on hospitality were lifted.
  • Non-food stores sales volumes fell by 1.9% over the month because of falls in each of its sub-sectors: other non-food stores (negative 2.8%), department stores (negative 2.7%), household goods stores (negative 1.1%) and clothing stores (negative 0.6%).
  • Non-store retailing (predominantly online retailers) sales volumes fell by 2.6% in August 2022; despite this fall, sales volumes were 24.4% above their February 2020 levels.
  • Food store sales volumes fell by 0.8% in August 2022, which leaves them 1.4% below their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) levels in February 2020.
  • The proportion of retail sales online fell to 25.7% in August 2022 from 26.3% in July 2022; despite this fall, it remains significantly above pre-coronavirus levels (19.8% in February 2020).

3 responses from the Newspage community

Copy all

Copy

Premium
Michael Oszmann
Founder & CEO at Buy Britain
Sadly we've seen a number of the small UK based manufacturers we work with cease trading in recent weeks. It's no surprise with the current conditions where businesses are being squeezed from both sides - suppressed demand and rapidly rising costs. It's not all doom and gloom though. We have seen buoyant sales for some of our sellers. For example a textiles company on our platform have seen strong demand to supply weddings, parties and events as Brits continue to get together and enjoy this year's post pandemic freedom
Copy

Legend
Maddy Alexander-Grout
CEO at My VIP Rewards
People are not spending as much money, they are understandably being cautious. But this is effecting small businesses. We recently did a survey with our retailers and over 75% said they were struggling compared to last year, and even the year before. Surprisingly My VIP Rewards has also seen a drop in sales. We help people to save money, but only when they spend at retailers, and with that declining I fear for our business.
Copy

Michelle Cunningham
Co-founder at Tarelle Accessories
As solely an online retailer of ladies accessories we had a 48% drop in sales in August compared to August 2021 and September is not looking any better with so far a 30% decrease in sales from last month. (but still above pre covid sales) We are seeing the same amount of consumers coming to our site but the sale conversions are very low. This shows people are looking but not buying. We are concentrating on our existing customer base and offering promotions on certain products to our e mail listing hoping to boost sales. We have also starting promoting on social media sites new to us to try and reach new customers . To help customers and our sales we will be offering Klarna payments later this month. We hope with summer now over and the busiest time of year coming up that fingers crossed sales will pick up.