High street bounces back with strongest growth for six years on back of heavy discounting

Experts have warned a recovery for the high street is still at an early and unpredictable stage despite the promising figures
Getty Images

The high street last month bounced back to its strongest month since January 2014 on the back of an easing political backdrop and heavy discounting.

2020 started on a positive footing as the closely watched BDO High Street Sales Tracker (HSST) reported a 5.7 per cent jump in like-for-like in-store sales for the month.

Each of the three major retail categories - lifestyle, fashion and homeware - all reported growth for the first time in two years, the survey also revealed.

However, experts at BDO warned any recovery is still at an early and unpredictable stage and it remains to be seen if any improvement in confidence will meaningfully boost the high street.

"Despite January being the best month in six years, this may be a false dawn in terms of a high street recovery," said Sophie Michael, national head of retail and wholesale at BDO.

"Bargain-hungry shoppers are continuing to acclimatise to increasingly lengthy sales periods, which stores are responding to with discounting still visible on the high street.

"February will show whether consumer confidence has got a toehold in some kind of recovery for retail."

The January figure comes after 2019 was reported as one of the worst years on record, with sales sliding 0.6 per cent, as it became the fifth consecutive year of falling high street sales.

January's growth was significantly driven by homeware sales, which grew 8.9 per cent for the month, in the category's best performance for nine years.

Meanwhile, fashion sales grew by 5.8 per cent for the month, ending two consecutive months of decline.

Lifestyle sales also posted significant growth, increasing by 5.1 per cent in January.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT