Delayed Gratification

Image source: best pixels, fad82, Vector Icon Systems on Shutterstock

What's going on?

Data out on Tuesday showed UK retail sales surged last month, and bargain-hunting Brits are now just crossing their fingers that all that shopping arrives sometime anytime soon.

What does this mean?

Savvy shoppers were snapping up Black Friday deals left, right, and center last month partly because of low prices, sure, but also in a bid to get ahead of potential shipping delays this holiday season. That helped specialist retailers including gift, toy, and jewelry stores post a 21% increase in sales compared to the November before the pandemic. Clothing sales likewise boasted their biggest increase since Covid arrived, but it wasnt just stores that did well: bars, pubs, and clubs saw their sales climb by 34% versus the same time in 2019. Add it all up, and retail sales in the UK were up a pre-pandemic-busting 4.1%.

Why should I care?

The bigger picture: No more sales.
Brits had good reason to hunt a bargain, with nearly 90% of them on edge about rising prices, according to data from credit card provider Barclaycard. They cant even rely on getting things cheap in the January sales: a major retail organization just said that rising costs could leave retailers struggling to cut prices in the New Year. That alone could damage consumer spending, and then theres the ever-increasing likelihood that the Bank of England will raise interest rates in the next few months a move that would leave shoppers with even less cash to spend.

Zooming out: Hot property.
Lifes bigger buys are getting more expensive too, with strong demand and a property shortage pushing up Britains real estate prices. In fact, data out on Tuesday showed the average house price rose to a record 273,000 ($361,000) last month up 8.2% from the same time last year, and the quickest three-month rise since 2006.

Originally posted as part of the Finimize daily email.

The top 2 financial news stories in 3 minutes. Join over one million Finimizers

Read next

Self-Drivers Ed

Sign up to Finimize

Get the two most important global financial news stories each day. Sent at midnight UK time.

Get started with one email a day

The top financial news stories in 3 minutes.