Like-for-like sales across fashion, lifestyle and homewares rose 4.6% year on year in October, according to BDO’s High Street Sales Tracker. That’s the strongest growth BDO has recorded since January 2025.
Most of it came from online. BDO’s figures show online sales up 10.1%, while in-store sales rose 2.2%, below the rate of inflation.
Fashion saw the same split in BDO’s data, with online up 9.0% and stores up 2.1%.
It’s a sharp turnaround from September, when BDO recorded a 0.3% fall in total like-for-like sales, its weakest September since 2019. Online sales were down 1.1% that month.
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BDO puts the rebound down to delayed seasonal spending. A warm spell pushed back-to-school and winter wardrobe buying back by around a month. When the weather turned colder, and with promotions on, shoppers came back.
BDO doesn’t expect the Autumn Budget to have given consumer confidence much of a lift.
Sophie Michael, head of retail and wholesale at BDO, said retailers “should be cautious about reading too much into a single month’s performance,” adding: “The reality is that consumers remain cautious and highly price-sensitive.”
BDO’s tracker measures discretionary spending across mid-tier UK retailers and is separate from the ONS retail sales figures.
