April 2020 UK Retail Sales: Huge Declines in Discretionary Sectors Conceal Meaningful Sales Retention through E-Commerce

What's Inside

Total UK retail sales further declined in April—as we predicted in our March monthly sales report—largely due to the enforced closure of nonessential retailers due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, deep declines conceal a meaningful retention of sales through e-commerce.

We review the monthly data for UK retail in total and by sector:

• We chart the trend in total value and volume retail sales growth over the last 13 months.
• We show value sales growth for 20 sectors across food and nonfood retail, for each of the latest three months.
• We discuss growth in online retail sales, by major sector.

Coresight Research’s monthly reports keep you up to date on US and UK retail sales, US retail traffic and in-store metrics, selected US retailers’ same-store sales and key global consumer indicators. Click here to view our full collection of monthly reports.