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Retail sales in 2020 worst on record, says BRC trade body
Jan 12, 2021
Retailers suffered their worst annual sales performance on record in 2020, driven by slump in demand for fashion and homeware products, figures show.
While food sales growth rose 5.4% on 2019, non-food fell about 5%, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said.
It meant an overall fall of 0.3% in a year dominated by the Covid-19 impact, the worst annual change since the BRC began collating the figures in 1995.
Christmas offered little cheer, with much of the High Street still closed.
"Physical non-food stores, including all of non-essential retail, saw sales drop by a quarter compared with 2019," said Helen Dickinson, BRC chief executive.
"Christmas offered little respite for these retailers, as many shops were forced to shut during the peak trading period," she said.
The 5.4% rise in food sales was fuelled by shoppers flocking to supermarkets and online grocers to ensure they were stocked up during the pandemic.
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In December, total retail sales increased by 1.8% as shoppers spent more in the run-up to Christmas. Like-for-like sales for the month were up 4.8% as overall shop takings were still affected by restrictions and temporary closures.
Online non-food sales jumped by 44.8% in December, according to the new figures, as a higher proportion of shopping took place online.
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