The UK’s High Street Non-Food Retailers have just had their best Christmas in a decade, according to ONS

The Office for National Statistics released its data on December Retail Sales last Friday, and the headlines looked like a disappointment, with sales volumes down by 0.3% on the month versus market expectations (including our own) that Christmas sales would at least be up on the month (seasonally adjusted), especially with October and November having already been somewhat lacklustre.

But Figure 1 below doesn’t backup this prevailing gloom at all.

Figure 1

So what is Figure 1, exactly? In short, it excludes the sales of Food, Automotive Fuel, and Online-only Retailers (ONS labels this ‘Predominantly Non-Food’).

I’m not making this up – promise. Predominantly non-Food UK Retail Sales volumes rose by 1.1% on the month in December, and by 6.7% in the year to December. Indeed, the current pace of yearly volume growth of around 7% is the best growth seen on the High Street in a decade if one excludes the Covid-interrupted years of 2021-22 (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

So what happened to make overall Retail Sales fall in December, then? In short, Food Retailers and Online-only retailers both saw sales decline on a seasonally adjusted basis in December (see Figure 3), and this what tipped the overall numbers into negative growth territory.

Figure 3

It is only when we add all of this back together that we can see the more familiar shape of overall sales (ex fuel) in Figure 4, where growth in the first half of 2024 gave way to stagnation in the second half of the year, if not outright decline in Q4.

Figure 4

But just to repeat: High Street-based, Non-Food Retailers have arguably just had their best Christmas in a decade. How's that for an alternative view on Christmas 2024?!

By the way, something statistically very strange has also been happening within the world of UK Food Retailing itself in the past few months, if some of the the more detailed ONS numbers are to be believed. Bad for the biggest supermarkets, if I’m right. Might even explain why Sainsbury's and Morrisons were so quick to start the new year announcing a round of layoffs. But you will need to tune in again early next week if you want to catch that story.