Consumer spending in UK supermarkets rose by 0.8% in June 2018, when compared to June 2017, according to the latest data from credit card and payment services provider Barclaycard.
Online sales for supermarkets increased by 15.6%, while in-store sales decreased by 0.2%.
Overall, consumer non-essential spending rose by 5.1% this past June, compared to the same month the previous year.
Esme Harwood, a director at Barclaycard, said in a press release that consumer spending maintained its strong growth in June for the second month in a row, maintaining the high level set in May. This growth in non-essential spending is the best performance since October 2016.
World Cup Fever
The start of the World Cup led to 9.5% overall growth in pub spending in June, with a sharp increase of 33% on the day of England’s first match, Barclaycard noted.
The first seven days of the World Cup saw a 10% rise on entertainment expenditure.
Entertainment spend recorded 11.3% growth, which is the highest increase since July of last year. Restaurants have also seen a 9.7% increase.
Sunny Forecast
Garden centres have seen an increase of 10.5% in the last month as well. Overall, 33% of Brits have spent more than normal so far this summer, with 28% of them attributing it to the uncharacteristically warm weather.
Some 65% of consumers said that they feel more confident in their household finances – the highest level of confidence seen in the last 12 months.
Similarly, 42% of Brits said that they want to support their high-street shops, following recent store closures across the UK. Some 21% said that they would try to support local business by visiting independent shops, and 19% said that they would try to buy in-store items instead of ordering them online.
However, supermarket growth dropped to 0.8% – its lowest level in 15 months – while essential spending grew by 3.2%. Some 42% of Brits also said that they are holding off on any big-ticket expenditures, remaining somewhat wary of the economic situation.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Padideh Aghanoury. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
