Black Friday was indeed ‘black’ for UK retailers

British retail sales grew at the weakest pace for any November since 2011 as hopes of a surge from Black Friday bargains were dashed, according to a survey from the British Retail Consortium industry on Tuesday.

It says the total value of sales between November 1 and November 28 was 0.7% higher than in the November period of 2014, slowing from a feeble 0.9% the month before.

In its previous survey the BRC had speculated that shoppers were putting off their purchasing plans hoping to benefit from Black Friday deals at the end of November, and both furniture and electrical goods sold particularly well driven by those Black Friday sales.

However the BRC said the build-up to the Christmas sales period was “one of the hardest to read in years”, with shoppers increasingly purchasing goods online.

The BRC said its measure of retail spending on a like-for-like basis, which strips out changes in floorspace and is preferred by some equity analysts, fell 0.4% year-on-year in November after a 0.2% fall in October.

These numbers add to the anecdotal and survey evidence already out there that, as far as traditional retailing is concerned, Black Friday is already a damp squib in the UK.

First published here: http://news.markets/shares/black-friday-indeed-black-uk-retailers-6314/