UK shop price inflation picks up, retailers ask government to help reut.rs/4dLaRZw

Updated retail sales growth rankings. Textiles top, audio, video and music at the bottom.

Notable easing in inflation, to the extent that the UK no longer has higher inflation than Germany. Transport is doing heavy-lifting in both directions: the price of fuel and the price of air fares, comparing a non-Easter week with an Easter week the year prior.

~5% headline inflation looking more likely by year-end

I've been developing a local data tracker of retail metrics, spanning GVA, pay/earnings, business count, employment as well as business rates. You can view and export data, with data available down to the parliamentary constituency level: brc.org.uk/market-intel...

Not a big fan of these three Bank of England scenarios. Seems to have meant less detail in terms of which metrics are being forecasted. February projections Databank: 44 tabs April projections Databank: 15 tabs

I've been developing a local data tracker of retail metrics, spanning GVA, pay/earnings, business count, employment as well as business rates. You can view and export data, with data available down to the parliamentary constituency level: brc.org.uk/market-intel...

Come on United. Revenge for 7-0 needed

BoE think we'll have food inflation at 4.6% by September. I think it could be 2 percentage points higher than that.

Volumes are now their highest since April 2022. But it's non-food that is driving this as food volumes remain 6.4% below pre-pandemic levels and non-food 1.3% above.

Good set of retail sales figures, with both sales values and volumes on the up. However there's still a trend of food volumes being depressed and non-food doing well despite the cautious consumer.

Uptick in UK inflation to 3.3% mainly due to the rise in fuel prices. Still a fair bit of inflation to makes its way through into the figures, however: “The average price [of petrol] stood at 140.2 pence per litre in March 2026”

Hmm. Seems de-escalatory

Harry Maguire would like to have a word

Won't they be persistent - In terms of the price level? Sure inflation should ease once this is all over, but the near-term step-change, as a result, is going to happen, irrespective of what happens to fuel prices.

I bet it still hallucinates 🥲

Also true in the UK. Obviously there's a lot going on underneath this (pensioners vs working age, renters vs owner occupiers, increased severe deprivation, differential inflation) but most/"average" households have seen real income growth (and inequality has not increased).

Artemis II today.

Not a great time to have a diesel. Thankfully I don’t drive all too frequently

Appeared on LBC News earlier to discuss the latest Shop Price Monitor figures published this morning:

Retail sales volumes are up 0.7% on the quarter, but did step back by 0.4% on the month. January's growth was revised up to 2%, from 1.8%. Food volumes remain depressed, however.

The calm before the storm... inflation settles at 3.0%. Biggest upward contributions came from clothing and footwear, plus furniture and household goods. Biggest downward came from alcohol and tobacco, transport as well as food.

Because of ME tensions, I ended up flying back to the UK through NZ (nice two day stopover!) before another flight to Houston and then finally back to Heathrow 🇬🇧

Perth dump

Gosh getting back to the UK is not going to be easy 😭

Sydney dump - next stop Perth 🇦🇺

I made it through Dry Jan. Time for a cold 🍺

stirlingretail.com/2026/01/26/r... ICYMI: Our post from yesterday (26/01). The second of a two part pair. This by @vacantshopsacademy.bsky.social on proactive and practical steps to tackle vacancy in our high streets.

🛍️ Deflation’s retreat: Shop prices pick up in January The latest @britishretail.bsky.social - NIQ Shop Price Monitor suggests prices picked up at their fastest pace in almost a year.

Mixed signals from the GfK survey of consumer confidence. but one positive is the improvement in the outlook for personal finances... 👇 Hopes of lower inflation and lower interest rates may be offsetting fears of higher taxes and rising unemployment... (1/2) nielseniq.com/global/en/ne...

Caveat however being that larger retailers performed worse than smaller retailers. In annual terms, larger retailers saw sales drop 1.6% and smaller retailers were up 6.4%.

Retail sales volumes were lower in Q4 vs Q3, but on the month we did see an increase in sales volumes of 0.4%.

Slight increase in inflation, driven by a few factors, principally alcohol and tobacco, followed by transport (earlier collection than usual of flight ticket prices) as well as hospitality, fashion and food.

📉 In the least surprising news ever, if the government makes it more expensive for retail and hospitality businesses to employ people, then they will - SURPRISE - employ fewer people!

For more insight into our Retail Sales Monitor, follow BRC Economist @harvirdhillon.bsky.social 👇

📉 The point here is that the "slowest growth" headlines were driven by food sales. Non-food retail actually *declined* in December 2025. Ignoring Easter/Black Friday phasing effects, it was the worst decline for over a year... How does "cozzie livs" affect retail? Now you know 👇

Sales rankings show that toys & baby equipment did particularly well, followed by food (as usual) and then computing.

🛍️ A "drab" Christmas for UK retail. 🎄 The latest @britishretail.bsky.social - @kpmguk.bsky.social Retail Sales Monitor reveals a somewhat tepid end to 2025.

You can see the detailed category performance in the thread below but here's the overall rankings. Computers, phones, TVs, second-hand goods and independent food all growing well, in volume terms.

Bit of a mixed bag in terms of retail sales growth, with non-food witnessing most of the growth, and food continuing to struggle. Food volumes are 2.8% lower than a year ago, whereas non-food volumes are 4.6% higher.

...and retail (and hospitality) are taking the brunt of the cuts. Good luck finding entry-level jobs to ease young people and NEETs into the workplace...

Retail jobs continue to head downwards. On current trends, we'll get below 2.5 million jobs before the end of the decade.

What's interesting about UK GDP is just how badly production industries have performed over the past few years. Also, services (the main driver hitherto) are now weighing on GDP for the first time since 2023.

The full Retail Sales Monitor report with a detailed category breakdown is accessible here ⤵

📉 Pre-Budget jitters dampen Black Friday The @the_brc - @KPMGUK UK retail sales measure rose 1.4% YoY in November. Despite Black Friday falling within this year’s window, sales growth was muted as shoppers held back amid economic uncertainty. 📊

🛍️ Spoke with BBC Radio London on the rise of pre-loved goods sales 👇🏽

🛍️ Fierce competition brings early Black Friday deals Today we published the latest @britishretail.bsky.social - NIQ Shop Price Monitor, covering November 2025.

Budget Day

A lot of you like to know which food and drink products you can expect to have paid more for. Here are the top 25 movers. Not good for pizza lovers 🍕

Signal from the output PPI is of persistence though. This suggests inflationary pressures for goods leaving the factory-gate (particularly cars, food and clothing) do remain.