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Sandra Halliday Published
October 24, 2025
It’ll be a less than glittering ‘golden quarter’ this year in the UK, a new report claims, with retail spend having fallen in the run-up to the year’s most important three-month shopping period and likely to stay muted.
Fashion retailers, department stores and online fashion brands have all seen declines year on year, but secondhand marketplaces and make-up stores “are benefiting from the tighter purse strings with sales on the rise”.
That’s according to a new report based on data from advertising platform Cardlytics.
It said that when comparing the period ahead of the golden quarter this year and 12 months ago, spend across retail between July and early September has dropped 4% by value, with the number of transactions also falling by 1%.
The figures are based on spending through 20 million UK bank accounts, although we have to take into account that the different sources used to produce various spending reports can come up with quite different results. In some cases, the figures in this report look a lot worse than those in others that we've seen.
The company says its figures suggest “declines for the most important period for retailers after over a year of tighter belts and higher rates of inflation”.
Over half of consumers have seen an increase in their retail spend due to inflation in the past year (58%) with 26% planning to cut back on Christmas presents for friends and family as a result of these rising costs.
Linked to this, 28% of UK adults are using more loyalty and reward schemes and 26% are looking for more discount codes online before making a purchase. A further 25% say they’ve switched to cheaper brands for clothing and homewares.
It’s bad news for the fashion sector that consumers are cutting back on non-essentials like fashion purchases. Value spend has fallen 11% here and the number of transactions is down 13% in the same time-period. At the same time, online fast fashion retailers have seen a continued decline — of 29% in spend and 31% in transaction numbers. Those figures point to a worse decline than many monthly retail reports have suggested.
And while there’s been a lot of talk about the physical stores revival, Cardlytics said that overall, between July and September, spending at department stores was down 18% and the number of visits fell 22%.
And what about luxury, which is usually less affected in tough times? The data indicates that while the number of transactions for high-end labels are up 34% year on year, the average transaction value has fallen 25% and overall spend has almost flatlined at just 1% up. It seems wealthier consumers are still spending with premium fashion brands but they’re spending far less in one go and choosing cheaper items.
Of course, in any downturn, there always beneficiaries and, as mentioned, secondhand marketplaces are still seeing growth with both spend and volumes increasing 6% year on year. Some 20% of consumers say they’ve bought more secondhand items (for suitability or thrift reasons) and cut back on their designer or luxury brands.
The ‘lipstick effect’ also seems to be alive and well as consumers continue to treat themselves to small items that make them feel good. Make-up stores have seen spend increase by 12% and the number of transactions increase 26%.