Non-food driving UK retail growth in 2021

Retailing in UK did not grow as steadily as the US counterpart. In UK the total retail sales grew by 4,8% from the year before. The growth was dampened by food retailing, which did not grow from the first pandemic year. On the other hand, non-food retailers saw a robust growth of 10,8%.

With regards to online, it has grown modestly after a rapid rise in 2020. In 2021 online sales grew by 4,3%.

After the strange pandemic year 2020, in 2021 online share of both non-food and food retailing has plateaued and started to gradually decline. For non-food retailing has been about 25% this year. For food retailers online plateaued to around 10%, but slipped slightly below that in December.