Retail Sales February Rise

Retail Sales February Rise.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released figures for February’s retail sales. After January figures didn’t show much improvement to the retail sector as it was still recovering from Christmas.

A partial improvement was seen from January’s slump which fell to 2% and a 1.7% recovery was seen in February. Compared with the same point last year there was a 3.7% improvement.

This exceeded all expectations with economists predicting only a 0.5% rise and only a 2.5% improvement for the year.

With these improvements retail prices fell by 0.2% alongside fuel which fell 4.4%. These figures come just days after it was found inflation had fallen 1.7%

Strong online sales continued too with a 2.5% improvement being seen, compared with January and a 12.4% compared with the same point last year.