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Key Points

• Continuing a sustained period of year-on-year growth, in October 2014, the quantity bought in the retail industry increased by 4.3% compared with October 2013, this is the nineteenth period of consecutive year-on-year growth.
• On the month the quantity bought increased by 0.8% compared with September 2014. There was growth in all sectors, except non-store retailing. Clothing stores showed growth of 0.5%, however, as growth in this store type fell by 5.9% in September the rise does not cancel out the fall seen last month.
• The three-month on three-month movement in the quantity bought showed continued growth for the twentieth consecutive month increasing by 0.4%. This was the longest period of sustained growth since November 2007 when there were 25 periods of consecutive growth.
• Average store prices fell by 1.5% in October 2014 compared with October 2013, this was the largest fall since December 2002 when prices also fell by 1.5%. Once again the largest contribution to the year-on-year fall came from petrol stations where petrol/diesel prices were at their lowest level since the end of 2010.
• In October 2014, the amount spent in the retail industry increased by 2.8% compared with October 2013 and by 0.7% compared with September 2014. Non-seasonally adjusted data show that the average weekly spend in the retail industry in October 2014 was £7.1 billion compared with £6.9 billion in October 2013 and £6.8 billion in September 2014.
• The proportion of sales made online fell by 0.1% to account for 11.2% of all sales in October 2014. Online sales increased by 7.5% compared with October 2013, this was the lowest year-on-year increase since November 2012 (6.9%).
• Revisions to this period were caused by the incorporation of late data. 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.