Back-to-school shopping and warm weather helped to boost retail sales last month, according to the latest official data.
Total retail sales in Great Britain rose 0.5%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, as parents prepared for the new school year and shoppers enjoyed a series of heatwave and the summer’s last bank holiday.
The figure was slightly higher than the 0.4% increase that some analysts had forecast.
The ONS, which revised its estimate for July’s monthly sales growth down from 0.6% to 0.5%, also said that non-store retailing, primarily online shopping, increased in August.
Clothing sales rose 1.3% month on month in August, boosted by the warm conditions, while there was a 1.1% monthly increase in non-food stores sales – the total of department stores, household and other non-food stores.
Food stores experienced a 0.5% rise as specialists, such as butchers and bakers, recovered from poor sales in July.
“Retailers will be pleased to see that August figures have increased, continuing the momentum from July of summer shopping,” said Jim Rudall, a regional director at Mailchimp.
“With summer holidays in full swing, August also brought the UK’s final bank holiday before December consumers used the long weekend to prepare for the seasonal shift.”
However, the ONS said that across the three months to the end of August retail sales fell by 0.1% compared with the previous quarter.
“Retail sales fell slightly across the latest three months though at a slower rate of decline than seen last month,” said Hannah Finselbach, a senior statistician at the ONS.
“This was mainly due to a poor period for non-food stores, such as antiques dealers and auction houses as well as tech stores, with fuel sales also falling. These were only partially offset by increases from online and clothing shops.”
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Retailers are also concerned that the late November budget, in which there could be tax rises, could weigh on consumers in the crucial Christmas trading period.
Earlier this month the British Retail Consortium said the boost in spending on food and drink had been because of price rises as opposed to consumers buying more products.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has said the budget will be held on 26 November, later than many had expected.