Mintel predicts an “unspectacular” Christmas 2014

Christmas sales growth is expected to be “slightly more modest” and “unspectacular”, according to predictions by research group Mintel. Mintel forecast a 3 percent total retail sales growth in December 2014, which will take retail sales up to 36.5 billion pounds. It added that non-food retailers

would experience the biggest growth at 3.5 percent, compared to food retailers who are expected to be up by less than 2.5 percent.

Mintel’s director of retail, Richard Perks, said: “There are several reasons to expect retail sales growth in December 2014 to be

slightly more modest than we saw last year; whilst consumer confidence has trended upwards there are signs of a recent faltering in this upward movement and the prospect of interest-rate rises is likely to prompt renewed caution among mortgage holders.

“Additionally, in terms of value, lower inflation will depress retail sales. Overall, the strong retail growth that was seen last Christmas will make the comparatives demanding.”

Mintel forecasts online sales surge for Christmas

The research house also added that online shopping would once again see a surge, with nearly 13 percent of all retail sales coming from online in December, reaching 4.7 billion pounds.

Perks explained: “The internet tends to out-perform at Christmas as consumers turn to the internet when they need to do ‘shopping-list’ shopping – when they are buying for themselves, browsing in-store is more of a pleasure.”

Mintel adds that a quarter of Brits said that they would be shopping online more this Christmas, which is being bolstered by mobile devices, with the latest research showing that 42 percent of consumers are shopping via smartphones, while 35 percent are buying via tablets.

The research also states that online success will be for store-based retailers who will take 51 percent of all online sales, compared to 39 percent by online-only retailers. However, sales through physical shops will only be up around 1.5 to 1.6 percent year-on-year, which suggests that the battle for Christmas could be won with their online offerings.

Perks added: “There are several reasons to expect value sales growth this Christmas to be unspectacular. Stores continue to dominate Christmas shopping – the large majority of December 2014 retail sales will be offline and even online, store-based retailers will take the majority of sales. But as in-store sales growth will be weak, internet transactions will be surging.”

Image: John Lewis Christmas 2013 campaign