British consumers shopped more in June after a sharp drop in May as hot weather helped to boost the sales of drinks, clothes and car fuel, official figures showed today.<\/p>\n
Retail sales volumes rose by a month-on-month 0.9%, a partial rebound from May’s 2.8% plunge which was the biggest fall since December 2023.<\/p>\n
However, the increase was smaller than the median forecast of 1.2% in a Reuters poll of economists.<\/p>\n
Many British households are feeling the squeeze again from an inflation rate that rose to 3.6% in June with food prices rising faster.<\/p>\n
A survey published earlier today showed consumer confidence dipped this month ahead of possible tax increases later this year and households added to their savings.<\/p>\n
In the three months to June, sales volumes rose by 0.2%, the weakest such increase since the three months to February, the Office for National Statistics said.<\/p>\n
ONS senior statistician Hannah Finselbach said the warm weather last month helped supermarket retailers who reported an increase in drink purchases and fuel sales rose.<\/p>\n
“Looking at broader trends, retail sales are up slightly across the latest quarter but are down when compared with pre-pandemic levels,” Finselbach said.<\/p>\n
British retailers have highlighted the impact of the country’s weather on their sales recently.<\/p>\n
Supermarket group Sainsbury’s reported better-than-expected quarterly trading with food and clothing boosted by warm temperatures. But fast food retailer Greggs warned on profit complaining that June’s heatwave hit overall footfall.<\/p>\n
The UK economy has stumbled after a strong start to 2025 with overall output contracting in April and May.<\/p>\n
The Bank of England is expected to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on August 7 as it responds to a jobs market slowdown. However, inflation pressures have thwarted bets on faster cuts to borrowing costs in the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British consumers shopped more in June after a sharp drop in May as hot weather helped to boost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[84,467,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-22364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-markets","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}