UK fashion sales down in December as happy Christmas hope fades

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Jan 6, 2020

The prospects for a retail rebound appeared to fade further this week as industry figures painted a bleak picture for fashion retailers in December.

Figures released by accountancy and business advisory firm BDO LLP showed a month of deep discounting that failed to get shoppers into fashion stores, with in-store fashion sales dropping by 2.4% from a poor base of -2.0% last year.

Fashion sales plunged by 9.03% during the crucial final week before Christmas, as consumers turned to the internet to get their last-minute gifts. 2019 marked the eighth negative December in a row for fashion, BDO’s monthly High Street Sales Tracker revealed.

Overall, in-store sales grew by just 0.7% during the month, failing to give retailers the boost they had hoped for. The first and last weeks of the month performed better than the rest, with the final week of December reporting an 8.6% increase in like-for-like sales.

Meanwhile, off the high street, non-store like-for-like sales were up by 24.5% as online sales benefitted from the impact of Cyber Monday landing six days later than it did last year. 

Ultimately, the report laid bare how deep and widespread discounting defined December sales figures, leading bargain-hunters to part with their cash early ahead of the January sales.

The bright points were lifestyle and homeware sales, which saw increases of 6% and 4.3%, respectively.

Sophie Michael, head of retail and wholesale at BDO, said discounting was qualitatively different this year. “Black Friday never quite ended and instead saw sales continue throughout the month.” 

She added: “January tends to be a positive month as people are more inclined to spend in the sales, however it’ll be interesting this year to see if many have already done their bargain-hunting in December. This month’s figures potentially paint a bleak picture for the first month of 2020 on the high street. 

“We’ll only see the real impact of such extensive discounting when retailers publish their bottom-line performances. Discounting helps to shift volume and increase footfall but requires retailers to continue trading on thin margins and thin ice. There’s increasingly an expectation among consumers that there’s always a sale just around the corner.”