The British Retail Consortium and Kantar said total like-for-like sales across UK shops rose 1.3% in the four weeks to 3 October, a slowdown from the 2.3% gain recorded in the same period last year and below the 1.5% twelve-month average the trade body tracks.
Food tills held up better than clothing racks. Grocery sales increased 2.5% over the period, down from 4.3% a year earlier, while non-food categories managed only 0.3% growth versus 0.7% in September 2025. In-store non-food volumes were essentially flat at 0.1%, with online non-food up 0.7% and accounting for 38.3% of non-food turnover.
What shoppers are skipping
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said growth remained subdued as households conserved cash before expected rises in household bills and taxes. Clothing and footwear had a weak month, which Dickinson linked to unseasonably warm weather that curbed autumn wardrobe refreshes even as back-to-school spending provided a partial offset.
Linda Ellett, UK head of consumer, retail and leisure at KPMG, described September trading as increasingly selective. “Overall sales increased, driven by food, but non-food sales were essentially flat and have declined slightly across the last three months,” she said in commentary released with the monitor. “This is a battle for share of wallet.”
Confidence and the budget clock
IGD chief executive Sarah Bradbury said shopper confidence had weakened amid higher pump prices, planned energy tariff increases and speculation about tax changes in Chancellor John Healey’s budget next week. The BRC used the release to press for relief on business rates, warning that higher property taxes would feed through to shelf prices and hiring plans.
The Office for National Statistics is due to publish its first estimate of September retail sales volumes at 7:00am London time on Friday. Economists will compare that official series with the BRC-Kantar till roll to see whether volume growth is tracking even softer than value, especially if food inflation is flattering nominal till receipts.
Implications for the high street
For landlords and local authorities, the split between resilient food and stalled discretionary categories matters for vacancy rates on secondary parades. Several mid-market apparel chains have already guided for cautious Christmas orders, and the monitor gives them little reason to raise inventory bets before Black Friday planning locks in.
Supermarket operators continue to win traffic through loyalty pricing and meal deals, but general merchandise aisles inside those stores are not immune to the same postponement behaviour hitting standalone specialists. Until the budget clarifies household tax and benefit changes, Dickinson’s “cautious spending” framing is likely to dominate trading updates through November.
Channel mix and promotions
Retailers told the BRC that promotional intensity on non-food remained high even as full-price sell-through weakened, a sign that margin protection is giving way to volume chasing. Grocers leaned on meal deals and loyalty points to defend share against discounters, while department stores cut autumn fashion ranges rather than discount deeper into loss-making territory.
Kantar’s till data capture roughly 60% of UK retail turnover by value, so the monitor is a leading indicator rather than a census. When ONS volumes land, analysts typically reconcile the two by stripping fuel and automotive categories that the BRC excludes. Any divergence this month will be scrutinised for evidence that shoppers are trading down to own-label food while postponing big-ticket electronics until Black Friday.
Business rates revaluation letters arriving in October added another cost line for shopkeepers in England. The BRC’s pre-budget letter argued that without transitional relief, high-street operators would accelerate store closures into 2027, particularly in secondary towns where footfall never fully recovered from pandemic shifts to online.
For investors, the read-through to listed retailers is mixed: grocers with strong own-brand penetration may report resilient like-for-like sales, while general merchandise specialists could guide lower fourth-quarter margins. The 1.3% headline is not a recession signal on its own, but it confirms that UK consumption is growing far below the inflation rate, squeezing real household purchasing power as mortgage costs reset.