Retail Prices Fall In August

This morning’s big news isn’t about Oasis reforming for a tour in 2025, but that prices in British shops have fallen for the first time in almost three years.

This is said to have been driven by heavy markdowns as clothing retailers have struggled to sell off summer stock (probably because it has been raining almost constantly since October 2023).

Statistics from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and NielsenIQ reveal that prices declined year-on-year by 0.3% in August, from a 0.2% increase in July.

This is the lowest rate since October 2021, when everyone was allowed to go out again after that pandemic thing (remember that?), and before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Prices in the non-food category fell year-on-year by 1.5 per cent after a 0.9 per cent decline the previous month. This was below the three-month average rate of 1.1 per cent and at its lowest rate since July 2021.

Food prices have also come down this month, easing to 2% from 2.3% in July. Fresh food prices, particularly fruit, meat and fish recording the biggest monthly decline since December 2020, due to supplier input costs lessening.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said that retailers would “continue to work hard to keep prices down and households will be happy to see that prices of some goods have fallen into deflation.” She also warned that commodity prices remain uncertain “due to the impact of climate change on harvests domestically and globally, as well as rising geopolitical tensions. As a result, we could see renewed inflationary pressures over the next year.”

This can be seen by the reported increase in the cost of fish and chips, apparently caused by both the war in Ukraine, and poor potato harvests. The cost of fish and chips has now soared by almost 50% in five years, to an average of £9.88 in July 2024, from £6.48 in July 2019, according to vital statistics from the ONS. Other takeaways have also increased across the board.

As we reported recently, retail sales improved in July, spurred on by the Euro 2024 football tournament and moderately better weather.

Ticketmaster sales might increase a bit come Saturday morning…