Tarriff-free trade is the priority, BRC says as High Street sales drop in March

Sales on the UK High Street underwhelmed in March, although the changed timing of Easter meant trying to discern the true underlying trend was tricky, one of the country's largest business lobby group said.

Like-for-like sales in the UK fell at an annualised pace of 1.0% last month, which was worse than last year´s outcome of -0.7%, the British Retail Consortium said.

In total terms, sales were 0.2% lower versus a flat reading in March 2016 and a 12-month average of 0.8%.

They were also below the average reading of 0.1% for the latest three-month stretch.

Helen Dickinson OBE, Chief Executive, British Retail Consortium, said: "First impressions of March’s sales figures are underwhelming, with the first decline since August last year. That said, the distortion which results from the timing of Easter always makes Spring a tricky period to assess and the later timing of the holiday this year certainly detracted from last month’s performance."

Consumers concentrated their spending on essential items, such as food, where prices rose as a result of higher food commodity prices and the weaker pound, Dickinson added.

"The pressure on prices continues to build, albeit slowly, and will inevitably put a tighter squeeze on disposable income and so to ensure consumers continue to enjoy great quality, choice and value on goods, securing tariff free-trade must be the priority as the Brexit negotiations begin in earnest," Dickinson said.

Weakness concentrated in non-food sales

Non-food sales were especially weak, with a fall in LFL sales of -1.1% on a three-month basis, as total sales declined 0.8%.

The latter marked the weakest reading since May 2011 and dragged the 12-month rate of sales to 0.3% - its lowest level since April 2012.

Total food sales rose by 1.5%, the strongest reading since April, but slowed in like-for-like terms to just 0.2% in the first quarter.

It was the first drop below 2.0% in the quarterly pace of sales in four months.

In quarterly terms, online non-food sales rose 7.4% as total in-store sales shrank by 3.0% and by 3.4% on a like-for-like basis, BRC said.