BRC Retail Sales Monitor YoY

The BRC Retail Sales Monitor is a private retail gauge from the British Retail Consortium, compiled by KPMG with food data from IGD. Year on year means sales values are compared with the same weeks a year earlier. It covers about 120 member retailers with 50000 physical stores and over 50% of sector turnover, not all shops. Responses span 34 small categories grouped into 20 visible categories, weighted to reflect UK spending.

It measures value including VAT and excluding automotive fuel, with no price or seasonal adjustment. It is not official ONS retail sales, which tracks the whole economy in seasonally adjusted volumes. Rising prices can lift values while volumes barely move, so value growth is not volume growth.

Retailers send weekly values for the current and year-ago periods to KPMG, with food data via IGD. Reporting months follow a 4-4-5 retail-week pattern, and a 53-week year shifts comparisons by 1 week. Each report is embargoed until 00:01 about 10 to 12 days after the period ends. Releases show total and like-for-like rates with 3-month and 12-month averages, Food splits, and channel splits.

Commentary from BRC, KPMG, and IGD explains category rankings and online penetration. Figures are published as percentages with no revision cycle. Economists watch Total for market trends, while retailers watch like-for-like for company performance.

Growth reflects spending shifts across Food, store, and online channels, plus price effects on values. The publisher sets no thresholds or target bands, so direction alone matters.

• Total retail sales: change in the value of all reported sales, showing overall market spending.
• Like-for-like sales: change in comparable sales only, excluding stores opened or closed within the year.
• Food: grocery growth compiled with extra data from IGD, in Total and like-for-like forms.
• Non-Food Total: growth in non-food sales, split by store and online with category contributions.
• Non-Food Store: in-store non-food growth in Total and like-for-like forms, showing high-street demand.
• Non-Food Online: online, mail, and phone growth plus online share of category sales.

1. Report values: retailers report weekly sales values including VAT and excluding fuel for the current and year-ago periods to KPMG. IGD supplies food values, and accuracy rests with the retailers.
2. Total sales: total growth is the percentage change in the value of all sales versus the same period a year earlier.
3. Like-for-like sales: like-for-like growth is the percentage change in comparable sales, excluding stores opened or closed in the year, and many retailers include distance sales.
4. Weighting: category responses are weighted with ONS Family Spending weights so each category matches its UK spending share, and the method is revised over time.
5. No adjustment: values are tracked without price or seasonal adjustment, so year-on-year comparison is the control, while Bank Holiday and Easter timing can distort reads.
6. Worked example: comparable stores sold £100.0m a year earlier and £102.5m this year, while new stores added £1.1m, so all-store sales are £103.6m. Total growth is 3.6% and like-for-like growth is 2.5%, so the 1.1 point gap is floorspace expansion.