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April showers for flooring sales
May 29, 2023
Carpet company complaints about a slow Spring for trading has been born out by the latest official data which showed an 18% decrease for April compared the previous month.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said floorcovering retail sales declined month-on-monthby 18.1% to £219.6m from £268.4m.
But, compared to the same month last year, sales increased slightly by 0.04% from £219.5m.
In the same statistics, furniture and lighting retail sales decreased 18% to £1.3bn from £1.6bn in March, but again, compared to the previous year, sales rose 8% from £1.2bn.
This result underperforms the consumer retail market as a whole where total non-food stores sales volumes rose by 1.0% over the month.
Helen Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium, holds out some hope: “Sales should improve as we enter the summer months, especially with inflation starting to ease and consumer confidence slowly stabilising."
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The British Furniture Confederation (BFC), the public affairs umbrella body of furniture and beds, furnishings and flooring sector trade associations, has unveiled its new Plan for Growth. The document is said to support BFC’s advocacy across four key pillars: skills and education; trade and exports; standards and regulations; and the environment and circular economy. It has been developed over the past few months, the organisation says, evolving from a combination of position papers written by the associations’ executives and a comprehensive survey of their collective members.
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