UK retail sales rise in January

New figures have shown that retail sales rose in January, as shoppers looked to take advantage of post-Christmas sale prices.

According to the Office for National Statistics, total sales rose by 0.7% in January compared with the previous month and – perhaps more significantly – were 3.6% higher than in January 2008.

A spokesperson for debt management company Gregory Pennington said that the sales figures may be due to customers spending while prices were down in order to protect their finances and minimise the risk of falling into debt.

While the overall year-on-year rise in sales may indicate that disposable incomes have not been hit as hard by the economic downturn as some experts had suggested, Howard Archer, chief European and UK economist at IHS Global Insight, did not expect sales figures to keep on rising.

"The increase in sales in January is fully consistent with the view that increasingly cash-strapped and pressurized consumers are looking to concentrate their spending when they can get the best value for their money," he said, according to the BBC.

He added: "We expect consumers to increasingly rein in their spending over the coming months."

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