The price of non-food items showed a year-on-year decline for the seventh consecutive month. Non-food prices are now 1.41 per cent lower than last year.
Food prices were up 0.59 per cent against December 2004, similar to the 0.53 per cent rise in November, which was the lowest year-on-year increase in the past 12 months.
BRC director-general Kevin Hawkins said: 'Shop prices in December remained lower than in December 2004, despite less pre-Christmas discounting due to retailers' planning stock levels carefully.
'While this means consumers probably saved on their Christmas shopping, prices throughout 2005 as a whole were also lower than in the past two years, with non-food items in particular showing a marked decrease. Lower prices are good news for consumers, but unfortunately come at a cost to retailers' profit margins.'
No comments yet