Shoppers are holding fire in anticipation of Black Friday on 27 November, the latest intelligence from the British Retail Consortium-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor for October suggests.

Overall UK sales fell 0.2% last month compared with October last year when sales held steady on 2013 and categories popular on Black Friday registered some slowdown during the month, the research shows.

Total food sales were flat in October on a year-on-year basis, but the three-month and 12-month rolling averages, at 0.5% and 0.3% respectively, continued to show the steady upticks experienced in recent months. The 12-month average was the best performance since July 2014. However, like-for-like figures were down 1.1%.

Food did not get the full benefit from England hosting the Rugby World Cup because of the home team’s early exit and Halloween falling on a Saturday this year meant that many customers went trick-or-treating rather than shopping.

Joanne Denney-Finch, chief executive, of IGD, said: “After a couple of months of modest growth, the food and drink year-on-year comparison in October fell back into marginally negative territory.

“Even Halloween falling on Saturday didn’t deliver a decisive boost and England’s early exit at the Rugby World Cup dented hopes for exceptional alcohol sales.”

“Deflation continued to dampen the figures which was good news for shoppers, even though most viewed it as a short-term windfall.

“Our research shows only one in ten shoppers expect food prices to fall again in the coming year. This cautious mood helps explain why the combination of rising incomes and falling prices has triggered only a modest amount of trading up on food and drink so far. However, this could change as we enter the crucial Christmas trading phase,” Denney-Finch said.

Meanwhile a separate BRC-KPM Online Retail Sales Monitor discloses The proportion of non-food sales sold online is on the increase.

Online sales in October accounted for 19.1% of total non-food sales, compared with 18.5% the previous year, according to the survey – the highest penetration rate since November 2014.

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said retailers would focus on ensuring there was a successful fulfilment structure in place to satisfy the inevitably large online orders as Black Friday approached.

David McCorquodale, head of retail at KPMG, added that with important promotional e-commerce days coming up this month, retailers would be ensuring their websites and fulfilment operations were ready to handle “any fireworks” on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

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