Statistics: Retail Sales, May 2014

Key Points

• Year-on-year estimates of the quantity bought in the retail industry continued to show growth in May 2014. The quantity bought increased by 3.9% compared with May 2013. Month-on-month the quantity bought fell by 0.5% compared with April 2014.
• The three-month on previous three-month movement in the quantity bought showed continued growth for the fifteenth consecutive month increasing by 1.3%. This is the longest period of sustained growth since November 2007.
• Average prices of goods sold in May 2014 showed continued deflation of 0.7%, fuel once again providing the largest contribution, falling by 2.2%. Food stores were the only sector to show an increase (0.4%) however, this series continues to fall and is now at its lowest level since March 2006 (0.3%). These data are consistent with the consumer prices index (CPI), which was published on 17 May 2014.
• In May 2014, the amount spent in the retail industry increased by 3.2% compared with May 2013. However, on the month the amount spent decreased by 0.5% compared with April 2014. Non-seasonally adjusted data show that the average weekly spend in the retail industry in May 2014 was £7.0 billion, compared with £6.8 billion in May 2013 and £7.0 billion in April 2014.
• The amount spent online increased by 15.1% in May 2014 compared with May 2013 and by 1.5% compared with April 2014.
• Revisions are due to late data and the introduction of a new imputation method. More information on this change can be found in the background notes.

Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.1.0.