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Retail sales - December 2021

ended 20. January 2022

Tomorrow (Friday) morning at 07:00, the Office for National Statistics is publishing the official retail sales data for December. If you're a retailer — traditional, online or hybrid — please send us your thoughts on how December was for you - and how January has been to date. Also, how confident are you about 2022 as a whole? Deadline is 22:00 tonight. We'll issue your comments to both local and national media.

No need for an essay. 3-4 sentences will do. As ever, if you're a Newspage Premium user, your response will be edited by a seasoned hack. 

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Liz Barnes
Managing Director at FreshWipes
As both a manufacturer and online retailer (of Biodegradable Body Wipes), there's no denying that last year was hard both on a global logistics level but also from all the uncertainty caused by COVID. January is looking really healthy so far, our sales have increased by 14% on last month - people just want to get back to normal and start living again. That means holidays, travel, sport and getting back to work. Yes, some people are unfortunately going to feel the squeeze from rising inflation and huge energy bills, but after years of austerity, the pandemic and bad news, I think we've got lots to look forward to in 2022.
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Keith Budden
Managing Director at Ensurety
Assuming that this figure includes all sectors of industry, including online and offline retail, it is disappointing that the overall trend in December (which traditionally has been a positive month) is negative. Of course though, we do have to take into account the 'voluntary' lockdown which we know had a massive negative effect on the hospitality industry. Let's see the next few months data before we set the hares running, but it is not a good omen for the economy as we start 2022.