MNI REALITY CHECK: UK March Retail Sales Hit By Clothing Slide

--Grocery Stockpiling, Internet Shopping Unlikely To Fill Lockdown Void

     LONDON (MNI) - UK March retail sales will come in very weak, as online

clothes shopping slumps and other categories fall much more than the overall 5%

decline foreseen by City analysts,outweighing a surge in supermarket trade,

industry leaders told MNI.

     Key points from their comments ahead of the April 24 report:

     **UK grocery spend up more than 20% in four weeks to March 22. Supermarket

sales account for 38% of retail sales by volume, official data shows.

     **March online clothes sales decline 5.7%.

     **Apparel sales fall to zero at some outlets.

     ANDREW GOODACRE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT INDEPENDENT RETAILERS' ASSOCIATION

BIRA: "Thirty percent of our members may not re-open ... Sales will not recover

to a normal level for 18 months ... and I don't know how many of these shops can

survive 18 months of low sales."

     ANDY MULCAHY, STRATEGY DIRECTOR AT ONLINE RETAILERS' ASSOCIATION IMRG:

"Online clothing sales fell through the floor in March." While anecdotal reports

suggest that British shoppers have increasingly turned to the internet, total

online sales actually declined by 5.7% in March over the same period a year

earlier, Mulcahy said.

     Some categories of internet sales skyrocketed in March, with house and

garden purchases jumping by 80%, but sales in the more-heavily weighted clothing

sector plunged by more than 40% on an annual basis, he said.

     REVOLUT SPOKESMAN: "Spending patterns were certainly different in March.

There was a doubling of sales for Playstation while Moonpig, the onlines

greetings card firm, saw sales increase by nearly 160%."

     "The hospitality sector saw the greatest downturn. Spending was down 86% at

pub group Weatherspoon's, while Pret a Manger sales fell 82%."

     FRASER MCKEVITT, KANTAR: "'March was a record month for UK grocery sales,

with overall spending up more than 20% in the 4-weeks to March 22, boosted by

stockpiling, then slowing to a more normal level when the lockdown kicked in."

     BUDGENS SUPERMARKET FUEL SALES SPOKESMAN: "Petrol and diesel sales were

sharply lower in the final week or so of the month as the full scale lock-down

licked in. Certainly many people may have filled their tanks before retreating

indoors, but there was no large scale stockpiling-type boost and not even the

slump in unleaded prices to around a pound a gallon helped."

     "By the end of March, forecourt fuel sales were around 80% lower than

normal."

     JOE STATON, CHIEF ECONOMIST, GFK: "Online spending unsurprisingly picked up

into late March as the lockdown kicked in. However, mid-month saw a surge of

demand for the time of year in durable goods as people prepared for the

likelihood of a then approaching lockdown. Sales of home office equipment rose

sharply -- monitor sales jumped 360% -- and freezer sales rose around 600%."

--MNI London Bureau; +44 203 865 3829; email: jason.webb@marketnews.com

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