Retail sales, Great Britain: March 2025

Retail sales volumes (quantity bought) are estimated to have risen by 0.4% in March 2025. This follows a rise of 0.7% in February 2025 (revised down from a rise of 1.0% in our last bulletin).

Clothing and outdoor retailers reported that good weather boosted sales. These increases were partly offset by falls in supermarket sales.

Looking at the quarter, sales volumes rose by 1.6% in Quarter 1 (Jan to Mar) 2025, compared with Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2024, and by 1.7% when compared with Quarter 1 2024.

The chart shows the quantity bought in retail sales over time, for both the rolling three-month-on-three-month and the month-on-month movements.

Sales volumes rose by 0.4% during March 2025, following a 0.7% rise in February. Sales volumes rose by 2.6% over the year to March 2025.

Volumes were down by 0.3%, compared with their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level in February 2020.

More broadly, three months of rising volumes led to a 1.6% rise across the three months to March 2025 (Quarter 1), when compared with the three months to December 2024 (Quarter 4). This was the largest three-monthly rise since July 2021. There was a 1.7% rise when comparing with the same period last year. These data are available in our Retail Sales Index datasets.

Non-food stores sales volumes - the total of department, clothing, household and other non-food stores - rose by 1.7% over the month. This put monthly sales volumes at their highest level since March 2022. Within non-food stores, clothing stores were the subsector with the strongest growth with retailers mentioning good weather boosting sales. Other non-food stores also rose in March 2025, which was strongest within second-hand goods stores (includes antiques and auction houses) and stores selling garden supplies. Retailer comments pointed to the good weather.

Non-store retailing sales volumes were up on the month, with similar commentary received about the weather, specifically mentioning boosts to clothing and DIY goods.

The Met Office climate summaries reported that the UK had its third sunniest March on record, and reported that March 2025 was warmer and drier than usual.

These rises were partly offset by food stores sales volumes which fell by 1.3% on the month, following a 2.2% fall in February 2025. Supermarkets had the largest downward contribution.

The amount spent online, known as “online spending values”, rose by 2.0% over the month to March 2025. Sales values also rose by 5.4% when comparing March 2025 with March 2024. However, they fell by 0.3% when comparing the three months to March 2025 (Quarter 1) with the three months to December 2024 (Quarter 4). Total spend – the sum of in-store and online sales – rose by 0.3% over the month. As a result, the proportion of sales made online rose from 26.4% in February 2025 to 26.8% in March 2025.

For March 2025, the Retail Sales Index (RSI) response rates were 60.5%, based on returned forms. This accounted for 94.0% of total turnover coverage of the sample population. For historical response information, see our Retail sales quality tables dataset.

Information on how we calculated the data, including strengths and limitations, and a glossary of relevant terms, is available in our RSI Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Seasonal adjustment

Seasonally adjusted estimates are derived by estimating and removing calendar effects (for example, Easter moving between March and April) and seasonal effects (for example, increased spending in December as a result of Christmas) from the non-seasonally adjusted estimates.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) uses the X-13ARIMA-SEATS approach to seasonal adjustment. Seasonal adjustment parameters are monitored closely and regularly reviewed. For more information, please see our seasonal adjustment methodology page.

Seasonal adjustment is applied at the industry level and the seasonally adjusted series are aggregated to create estimates by industry sector and total retail. As part of our quality assurance approach, residual seasonality checks are regularly completed by our time series analysis team on both the directly seasonally adjusted series, and also the indirectly derived aggregate time series.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April 2015. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "accredited official statistics".