Price wars drive down inflation for January Wednesday, 8th February 2012

Every little counts, apparently, as retail price wars helped to drive down the cost of clothing, furniture and electrical goods in January compared to a year before.

The results from the BRC- Nielsen shop price index will come as good news for the British consumer, seeing non-food inflation across all categories fall to zero in January, from 0.3 per cent in December. Food inflation slowed to 3.7 per cent from 4.2 per cent.

The index depicts the lowest level of food price inflation since July 2010, thanks to heavy discounting from retailers and falling commodity prices.

Food and non-food prices combined to drive overall shop price inflation down to 1.4 per cent in January from 1.7 per cent in December, the lowest since March 2010.

"With the impact of the 2011 VAT rise finally gone from annual comparisons these figures show how retailers are holding down prices for customers despite a range of upward pressures," said Stephen Robertson, the BRC's director general.

"Even though retailers are facing higher transport and property costs, overall non-food prices are exactly the same as a year ago. Within that, clothing, furniture and electricals were all cheaper than 12 months ago with the price of electrical goods falling at its fastest rate for three years."

The fall in shop price inflation reflected broader price trends, with the annual rate of inflation expected to fall sharply in 2012.

Related Stories

• BRC warns on escalating food prices (Wednesday, 5th September 2012)
• BRC Director General bows out (Wednesday, 28th March 2012)
• Latest BRC results: Shoppers hit the high streets as weather improves (Monday, 20th February 2012)

Posted in Retail Industry Tagged shop price, index, nielsen, brc, british, retail, consortium, stephen robertson, my retail media, my, media, news