UK retail sales volumes rose 1.4% month-on-month in November, according to latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Growth was driven by the performance of household goods stores, which saw volumes rise as much as 5.3%.
But the success was not shared by food stores, which remained flat month on month and saw a 1% drop in the three months to November.
Black Friday sales pushed non-seasonally adjusted growth to 13.2%, compared to 8.7% in November 2013.
Online sales as a proportion of all retail sales broke 20% for the first time.
The overall growth followed two months of decline, resulting in a three-month climb in volumes of 0.3%, down from a 16-year high of 2.4% in July.
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The figures were higher than expected, with the 1.4% overall growth well above the forecast average of 0.3%.
However, the British Retail Consortium noted that year-on-year growth for large businesses - defined as having over 100 employees or a registered annual turnover of over £60 million - was just 1.8% overall and 6.3% online, calling the performance “dismal”. Small businesses did much better, seeing 13.9% growth overall and 25.1% online.
“ONS figures suggest that while large retailers, both online and offline, had a dismal November, Christmas apparently came early for small businesses,” said Rachel Lund, the BRC’s head of insights and analytics.
“With sales by small retailers growing more than 13% on last year overall and 25% online, there will be cause for more than a few raised eyebrows in the industry.”
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