There’s been little good news coming out of UK retail in recent periods and so it was on Friday with high street sales data from BDO for March.

It was the sixth month of negative results for the BDO tracker, the longest period of negative sales growth outside of the pandemic.

That said, fashion was the only non-store category to see positive results in March but the growth of 1.5% failed to offset negative in-store fashion sales, which declined by 6%.

Neither Mother’s Day nor the Easter four-day holiday weekend seemed able to move the needle, although it could be that sales would have been even worse without them. Either way, March’s total like-for-like sales fell 2.2% across the fashion, homewares and lifestyle categories. In-store sales were down 1.8% (the fourth consecutive month in which they dropped) and non-store sales fell by 2.3% too, after three months in which they’d edged up. 

Sophie Michael, Head of Retail and Wholesale at BDO, commented: “These results continue to paint a bleak picture for retailers. Despite both the bank holiday weekend and Mother’s Day falling in March this year, these results serve as a stark reminder of the pressure the sector is under.

“Going into April, retailers will see their costs rise even higher with the uplift in the national minimum wage and increased business rates leaving very little room to spend on investment, promotions or other ways of encouraging consumer spending.

“Elsewhere, there are reports that order levels fell in March and are expected to fall further in April, showing no signs of appetite for consumers to increase discretionary spend. Retailers will be fixated on managing their cost base to ride out what continues to be a challenging trading period, with no notable recovery on the horizon just yet.”