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Sandra Halliday Published
April 15, 2025
Two regular monthly reports came out on Tuesday, one showing general consumer spending and the other retail sales specifically. While there was talk of green shoots, you had to look very carefully to find them and the overall picture is that caution remains the watchword for many shoppers.
We’re not exactly in a boom period. Looking first at the Barclays report, the company that processes a huge chunk of UK consumer spending via its payment cards said consumer card spending grew only 0.5% in March, which was lower than the 1% in February and undershot the latest CPIH inflation rate of 3.7%.
But importantly, while ‘essential’ spending contracted 2.9%, with consumers making cutbacks in anticipation of rising household bills, confidence in discretionary spending remained resilient, with 58% confident in their ability to spend on non-essential items. Discretionary spend increase 2.2%, which was still below inflation but a step in the right direction.
Interestingly too, the impact of tariffs may not have quite kicked in yet but 71% of UK adults plan to buy more ‘Made in Britain’ products, reflecting sentiment expressed in other countries in Europe and also in Canada in reaction to the US imposing extra import duties.
As far as discretionary spending was concerned, garden centres saw the biggest spike with a 13.4% increase, which was hardly surprising given the sunny weather during March.
But pharmacy, health & beauty also rose strongly with an 11% jump – the category’s greatest increase since April 2025. Clothing spend meanwhile was up a more anaemic 1.1%.
While retail as a whole was down 0.2%, some particular store categories fared worse with department stores falling 3.2% and discount stores 3.1%.
Meanwhile, the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor, which excludes general consumer spending and focuses on retail specifically, reported total retail sales up 1.1%. This was lower than +3.5% a year earlier but March and April are always tricky months to assess given the way the timing of Easter moves around between the two months in successive years.
The monitor showed non-food sales up by 0.6% year on year in March, against a decline of 0.4% in March 2025.
In-store non-food sales fell by 0.1% year on year, against growth of 0.1% in March 2025 while online, they rose 1.8%, beating last year’s 1.4% drop.
BRC CEO Helen Dickinson said: “Despite a challenging global geopolitical landscape, the small increase in both food and non-food sales masked signs of underlying strengthening of demand given March 2025’s comparison with last year’s early Easter. The improving weather made for a particularly strong final week, with gardening and DIY equipment flying off the shelves. Jewellery and beauty products were helped by Mother’s Day, though sales of bigger ticket items like furniture remained weak.”