Britain's retail sales were down 0.3 percent in July on a like-for-like basis from July 2013, when they had increased 2.2 percent on the preceding year, said British Retail Consortium (BRC) Tuesday.
The growth rate was significantly lower than the market expectation consensus of a 0.9 percent increase, and it was the second consecutive month of annually declining sales.
Furniture was the best performing category, reporting its highest growth since January, excluding Easter distortions. Meanwhile, said BRC. Food was the worst performing category and experienced its deepest three-month average decline since our records began in December 2008.
Online sales of non-food products in Britain grew 14.9 percent in July versus a year earlier, with the non-food online penetration rate climb from 16.7 percent in July, 1.4 percentage point higher than in July 2013, figures showed.
The three-month average of the annual growth rate also fell from 1.3 percent to negative 0.2 percent (-0.2 percent), the weakest rate since June 2012, data also showed.
"July last year was a tough month to beat because consumers had really responded well to high profile exciting sporting events and of course, the birth of the royal baby," said Helen Dickson, Director General of BRC in a statement.
David McCorquodale, Head of Retail of KPMG, commented: "The tale of two sectors continues with polarization between food and non-food. While non-food retailers had a stellar month, surpassing even last year's record sales performance, the grocers saw sales tumble in value as their competitive pricing continued."/.