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Main Points

• Year-on-year estimates of the quantity bought in the retail industry continued to show growth in February 2015, increasing by 5.7% compared with February 2014. This was the 23rd consecutive month of year-on-year growth and the longest period of sustained growth since May 2008 when there were 31 periods of growth.
• The underlying pattern in the 3 month on 3 month movement in the quantity bought continued to show growth for the 24th consecutive month, increasing by 2.0%. This was the longest period of sustained growth since November 2007 when there were 25 periods of consecutive growth.
• On the month, the quantity bought in the retail industry increased by 0.7% compared with January 2015. All store types showed growth.
• Average store prices (including petrol stations) fell for the eighth consecutive month, falling by 3.6% in February 2015 compared with February 2014. This is the largest year-on-year fall since consistent records began in 1997. Once again the largest contribution to the year-on-year fall came from petrol stations, which fell by 15.5%, the largest year-on-year fall in this store type on record.
• In February 2015, the amount spent in the retail industry increased by 2.2% compared with February 2014 and by 0.3% compared with January 2015. Non-seasonally adjusted data show that the average weekly spend in the retail industry in February 2015 was £6.6 billion, compared with £6.5 billion in February 2014 and £6.5 billion in January 2015.
• The value of internet sales decreased by 2.3% compared with January 2015 and accounted for 11.6% of all retail sales in February 2015. Online sales increased by 10.1% compared with February 2014.
• Revisions in this release were caused by the incorporation of late data. The earliest revisions point for current price, non-seasonally adjusted data was February 2014. More information on revisions can be found in the background notes.

Get all the tables for this publication in the data section of this publication.