April’s gross sales volumes examine with a slight improve of 0.1% in March, discovered knowledge by the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS),
Gross sales volumes rose by 5% within the yr to April 2025, plus volumes have been up by 0.3% in contrast with their pre-Coronavirus degree in February 2020, reaching their highest degree since July 2022.
There was a 1.8% rise throughout the three months to April, when put next with the three months to January 2025.
Regardless of this progress, clothes and non-food shops gross sales volumes did lower.
Non-food shops gross sales volumes, which embody division, clothes and family shops, dropped 0.7% over the month. This was resulting from a decline in gross sales in clothes shops and different non-food shops, comparable to sports activities and video games retailers, and second-hand shops. On-line gross sales inform an analogous story for the non-food sector, falling by 5.9%.
Textile, clothes and footwear retailer gross sales dipped by 1.8%, and on-line gross sales fell by 1% throughout the month.
In distinction, gross sales for department shops rose 2.8% throughout April, as retailers mentioned the nice climate helped to drive gross sales. On-line gross sales additionally rose for department shops, climbing by 1.5%.
Erin Brookes, European retail and client lead at administration consultancy Alvarez & Marsal, mentioned: “Retail gross sales climbed once more in April, boosted by a late Easter and a spell of spring sunshine that inspired spending throughout classes together with meals. This uptick, mixed with extra constructive client confidence figures, might be a sign that the sturdy begin to the yr is ready to proceed.
“Retailers can be hoping that this constructive momentum holds within the face of a difficult setting. The sector has been the primary goal of a wave of cyberattacks on main manufacturers like M&S and Harrods, and retailers are nonetheless calibrating the potential impression of US tariffs on their companies, though the brand new UK-EU deal is a constructive growth.
“Sustaining this progress will depend upon retailers’ means to handle disruption, shield provide chain resilience and discovering new methods to unlock discretionary spending by means of clear worth propositions, notably round summer season journey, leisure and seasonal purchases.”
