LONDON- Britons cut back on their shopping in February and consumer confidence levels tumbled this month as accelerating inflation cast a shadow over the world’s fifth-biggest economy, data released on Friday showed.
Retail sales volumes unexpectedly fell by 0.3 percent in February from January. Economists polled by Reuters had on average forecast a 0.6 percent monthly rise.
Excluding automotive fuel, which rose in price in February as tensions between Russia and Ukraine escalated, sales volumes fell by a sharper 0.7 percent.
Some of the fall was linked by the Office for National Statistics to stormy weather which kept some shoppers at home while the fading of the Omicron COVID-19 meant people returned to pubs and restaurants at expense of grocery retailers.
But rising prices meant the amount of money spent on food shopping rose, even as volumes fell.
