Consumer spending data shows strong Easter boost
Further data emerged to confirm the strong lift to spending in April from the later Easter this year, according to figures from Barclaycard.
Consumer spending accelerated to 5.5% in April compared to the same month last year, which Barclaycard noted was ahead of the three-month average of 4.7% but that the Easter bunny hopped along much later this year.
The Barclaycard data showed strong in-store growth of 2.9% in April, well above the three-month average of 1.1%.
Online spending continued its double-digit growth at 13.2% but was below the three-month average of 15.0%.
The credit card spending data came on the same day as the BRC-KPMG's retail sales monitor, which showed strong food sales drove like-for-like sales growth to 5.6% in April from the fall of 1.0% in March, which was the Easter month last year.
"The April data is artificially higher in a lot of categories, boosted by the later Easter in 2017 versus early Easter in 2016," Barclays cross-asset research team noted.
"This caused a slowdown in some categories in the March data, and has in turn provided a significant boost to the April data. The timing discrepancy makes it impossible to determine how much is real growth and how much is simply a consequence of the later holiday period."
The team noted that electronics and household appliance stores have been declining over the last 6-12 months, "which could suggest that consumers prefer to spend on their property improvement, rather than on household goods".