Retail sales, Great Britain: August 2025

The quantity of goods bought (volume) in retail sales are estimated to have fallen by 0.1% in the three months to August 2025 when compared with the three months to May 2025. Falls in automotive fuel and computer and telecoms equipment stores were partly offset by increases in non-store retailing and clothing stores.

Retail sales volumes are estimated to have risen by 0.5% in August 2025, following an increase of 0.5% in July 2025 (revised down from a 0.6% rise in our last bulletin). Clothing stores, butchers and bakers, and non-store retailing grew in August 2025, which some retailers attributed to the good weather.

Sales volumes fell by 0.1% in the three months to August 2025, compared with the three months to May 2025. This was a slowing in the rate of decline when compared with the 0.6% fall in the three months to July 2025. August 2025 marked the third consecutive period of monthly growth, but volumes did not quite return to their recent March 2025 peak. However, when comparing with the three months to August 2024, sales volumes rose by 0.8%.

Sales volumes rose by 0.5% over the month during August 2025, following a 0.5% rise in July, and rose by 0.7% over the year to August 2025.

Volumes were down by 2.1%, compared with their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level in February 2020.

These data are available in our Retail Sales Index dataset.

Sales volumes over the three months to August 2025 dropped marginally, with falls in other non-food stores, such as second-hand goods retailers (which includes auction houses and antiques dealers), and retailers of computers and telecoms equipment. Automotive fuel sales also fell. This was partly offset by an increase in non-store retailers (which are mainly online) and clothing stores.

Sales volumes grew steadily over the month to August 2025, matching the July 2025 increase. Non-food stores (the total of department, clothing, household, and other non-food stores) rose by 1.1%. The rise was across all four sub-sectors, mainly because of increases in second-hand goods (within other non-food) and clothing stores. Retailer comments mentioned dry weather as a reason for the increase.

Food stores also saw a rise. Specialist food stores (such as butchers and bakers) mostly recovered from poor sales in July 2025, with reports of improved footfall. Non-store retailers also increased, making this their seventh consecutive monthly rise.

The Met Office climate summaries reported that the UK experienced below average rainfall, while temperatures were above average across all four nations.

The amount spent online, known as "online spending values", rose by 2.0% when comparing the three months to August 2025 with the three months to May 2025, and by 3.4% when comparing with the three months to August 2024.

Considering the monthly series, sales values rose by 0.4% over the month to August 2025, and by 4.7% when comparing August 2025 with August 2024.

Total spend (the sum of in-store and online sales) rose by 0.6% over the month. As a result, the proportion of sales made online showed little change, falling from 27.7% in July 2025 to 27.6% in August 2025.

For August 2025, the Retail Sales Index (RSI) response rates were 57.9% based on returned forms, 4.3 percentage points below the average of initial estimates over the past twelve months. This accounted for 82.6% of total turnover coverage of the sample population. Historical response information is available in our Retail sales quality tables dataset.

Information on how we calculated the data, including strengths and limitations, and a glossary of relevant terms, is available in our RSI quality and methodology information (QMI).

Re-referencing of indices to 2023 equals 100

Previously, retail sales indices were referenced to 2022 equals 100 (that is, for each component, the average of the monthly indices of that year are set to equal 100). Ahead of the publication of UK National Accounts, the Blue Book: 2025 (released on 31 October 2025), the reference period has been updated to 2023 equals 100 for this release. Blue Book 2024 consistent data will be included for the first time in our GDP quarterly national accounts, UK: April to June 2025 bulletin (released on 30 September 2025). Please note that this does not affect growth rates.

Seasonal adjustment

Seasonally adjusted estimates are derived by estimating and removing calendar effects (for example, Easter moving between March and July) and seasonal effects (for example, increased spending in December because of Christmas) from the non-seasonally adjusted estimates.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) uses the X-13ARIMA-SEATS approach to seasonal adjustment. Seasonal adjustment parameters are monitored closely and regularly reviewed. Improvements following our annual seasonal adjustment review have been implemented in this release. More information is available on our Seasonal adjustment methodology page.

Seasonal adjustment is applied at the industry level, and the seasonally adjusted series are aggregated to create estimates by industry sector and total retail. As part of our quality assurance approach, residual seasonality checks are completed regularly by our time series analysis team on both the directly seasonally adjusted series and the indirectly derived aggregate time series. Based on current data, we find no residual seasonality in the main aggregate for monthly retail sales estimates.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in July 2015. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".