Black Friday delivered a sales boost to the UK High Street but shop tills were otherwise quiet last month.
The latest British Retail Consortium (BRC) / KPMG sales monitor found total shop sales grew by 0.7% last month, down from a 2.2% rise a year earlier.
On a like-for-like basis, where the impact of the new shop openings and closures are stripped out, sales fell by 0.4% in the month.
Total growth was also below the quarterly average of 2% and the 12-month average of 1.7%.
Black Friday, which kicked off the last weekend of trading in November, did provide a significant boost to non-food categories with sales up a quarter compared with the first week of the month.
However, the impact was not as pronounced as it was 12 months earlier.
“November’s relatively flat sales figures are a reality check for the retail sector with consumers holding off for a Black Friday bargain pitted against retailers determined to hold on to their hard-earned margins,” KPMG head of retail David McCorquodale said.
“The result was that, despite the hype around Black Friday, there was minimal loosening of the family purse strings compared to last year and retailers, facing significant cost increases next year, will be striving to wean UK shoppers off the discounting drug.”
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said the festive season run-up was one of the “hardest to read in years”.
She said: “The conversion of people’s higher disposable income into retail sales shouldn’t be taken for granted.”