Sunshine turns the heat up on furniture retailers, says BRC

14th July 2009 | sales | The good weather in June meant furniture and flooring stores suffered, according to the British Retail Consortium’s latest monthly sales figures.

Stephen Robertson, BRC director general, said the sunshine focussed consumer attention on food and outdoor living – resulting in a 1.4% like for like sales increase on the same month last year and a 3.2% rise overall.

‘But the sun knocked sales of big-ticket items such as furniture and homewares,’ he said.

KPMG’s head of  retail Helen Dickinson added, ‘For non-food as a whole, like for likes remain in negative territory with furniture and flooring along with home textiles showing the largest declines.’