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Sandra Halliday
Published July 26, 2026
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UK retail sales buoyant in clearance month, football jerseys and swim trunks strong
BySandra Halliday
PublishedJuly 26, 2026
UK retail sales beat forecasts for June with a 4.2% year-on-year rise on a volume basis. Meanwhile they rose 1% compared to the previous month, following a rise of 1.2% in May, and were even up 0.9% compared with the pre-Covid level in February 2020. That’s good news given that they’ve frequently lagged behind pre-pandemic numbers
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also said textile, clothing and footwear stores were up 1.9% last month, which easily beat the 0.1% decline of the last three months. But do bear in mind, these are volumes we’re talking about, not value, and in a month dominated by clearance sales, volumes usually head upwards. By value, sales rose only 2.8% for the month and 3.8% for the second quarter as a whole. But textile, clothing and footwear store values trailed as they rose 2% in the quarter but were flat for the month. We don’t know yet whether retailers were happily clearing more discounted stock than they’re usually able to do and making space for new arrivals, or whether they were unhappily being forced into ever-steeper discounts to shift stock that had sat stubbornly on the rails during the previous few months. The proliferation of ‘extra 10%/15%/20%-off sale price’ emails going out during June might have suggested the latter.
Or maybe the heatwave meant that consumers were enthusiastically buying summer pieces and glad they were at discounted prices. We already know that swimwear has been having a moment and plenty of anecdotal reports back this up (plus some data from Shopify further down in this news story). The thing is though, we won’t really know for definite until large numbers of retailers issue their earnings reports in the months ahead.Back with the ONS figures, department stores struggled with a 1.7% volume drop in June compared to a 1.6% increase for the three months as a whole. But non-store retailing – which largely means online – was much stronger with a 3.8% quarterly increase and an accelerated 4.4% rise last month.The ONS said increased sales of clothing and sports merchandise benefited the June figures for non-store retailers in particular. We were also provided with value figures for online sales, which rose across most sectors over both the month and the three months by 5% and 5.8%, respectively.So what did those in the know make of all this? Deann Evans, EMEA MD at Shopify, called a second straight month of sales growth “good news for UK retail, with the ongoing heatwave a key driver of June’s shopping habits”. The data showed strong sales for obvious items like fans, outdoor sports/games equipment, and — importantly — swim trunks (up 54.3%).The world Cup meant sales of footballs rose nearly 200% year on year, with replica jerseys close behind on 139%.Harvir Dhillon, lead economist at the British Retail Consortium, said that “a lot of this shopping took place online” — perhaps due to the extreme heat keeping people out of stores — “as the share of internet sales rose to its highest since April 2021 at 29.4%”.But Kien Tan, senior retail adviser at PwC UK, said we should avoid too much celebration: “While June’s outperformance will be good news for retailers, continuing this momentum may be more difficult. Inflationary pressures on food and energy will grow in the months ahead, and the cost-of-living continues to weigh on the minds of consumers. As those prices rise, there will inevitably be less discretionary spending later in the year.”And Melissa Minkow, global director of retail strategy and insights, CI&T (which helps businesses move into the AI age), said that “July’s figures will be an interesting watch, because we’ll see a response to [Andy] Burnham’s cost of living policies come into play. Consumers tend to either pull back if they expect new policies to limit their funds or spend more if they think they’ll be good for their wallets. Burnham looks set to stay the Starmer course, but only time will tell whether or not his flurry of cost-of-living policies will be enough for Britons to further release the reins on spending.”
Tags :FashionLuxuryBeautyLifestyleRetail
