Retail sales, Great Britain: August 2024

Retail sales volumes (quantity bought) are estimated to have risen by 1.0% in August 2024, following a rise of 0.7% in July 2024 (revised up from a 0.5% rise in our previous publication). 

Some supermarkets and clothing retailers reported a boost because of warmer weather and end-of-season sales. 

More broadly, sales volumes rose by 1.2% in the three months to August 2024, when compared with the three months to May 2024.

The chart shows the quantity bought in retail sales over time, for both the rolling three-month-on-three-month and the month-on-month movement. 

Sales volumes rose by 1.0% during August 2024 following a 0.7% rise in July 2024. In August, sales volumes were at their highest index levels since July 2022. Over the year to August 2024, sales volumes rose by 2.5%, the largest annual rise since February 2022.  

When compared with their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level in February 2020, volumes were down by 0.4%.  

More broadly, there was a 1.2% rise across the three months to August 2024 when compared with the three months to May 2024, and a 1.0% rise when comparing with the same period last year. These data are available in our Retail Sales Index datasets. 

The reporting period for this bulletin covers 28 July 2024 to 24 August 2024.

Food stores sales volumes rose by 1.8% in August 2024, following a rise of 0.3% in July 2024. Compared with August 2023, sales volumes rose by 0.6%, the largest yearly increase since July 2021. This growth was mainly from supermarkets. Retailers suggested that better weather contributed to rises in sales volumes.  

Non-food stores sales volumes, the total of department, clothing, household and other non-food stores, rose by 0.6% in August 2024, with clothing stores having the largest impact. Comments from retailers attributed the growth to end-of-season sales, alongside some mention of better weather. This follows a rise of 1.6% in July 2024. 

The Met Office climate summaries reported that August 2024 had slightly above average temperatures. This was offset against the previous month when the Met Office climate summaries reported the coldest start to July since 2004 (PDF, 4.7MB).

The amount spent online, known as "online spending values", remained flat at 0.0% during August 2024, and rose by 4.3% compared with August 2023.  

Total spend, the sum of in-store and online sales, rose by 0.4% over the month. As a result, the proportion of sales made online decreased from 27.8% in July 2024 to 27.6% in August 2024.

For August 2024, the Retail Sales Index (RSI) response rates were 64.9% based on returned forms. This accounted for 92.5% of total turnover coverage of the sample population. For historical response information, see our Retail sales quality tables dataset.  

Information on how we calculated the data, including their strengths and limitations, and a glossary of relevant terms are available in our Retail Sales Index Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).  

Re-referencing of indices to 2022=100 

Previously, retail sales indices were referenced to 2019=100 (that is, for each component, the average of the monthly indices of that year are set to equal 100). Ahead of the publication of Blue Book 2024, the reference period has been updated to 2022=100 for this release. Please note that this does not impact growth rates. 

Deflator weights 

Value estimates of retail sales reflect both price and volume changes. To remove the direct effects of price changes, value data are deflated to produce RSI volume measures. A separate price deflator is used for each RSI industry at four-digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC). 

Industry price deflators are calculated from commodity price indices using weights appropriate to the relevant industry, derived from the Annual Business Survey (ABS) data and based on the value of turnover. Deflator weights from 2020 onwards have been updated as part of this release based on ABS commodity weights along with price indices derived from the Consumer Prices Index (CPI). This has revised the headline monthly seasonally adjusted volume series by up to 0.3 percentage points but typically 0.1 percentage points in some months. On average, the headline monthly volume series was revised by less than 0.05 percentage points.

Accredited official statistics 

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in March 2015. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".