Jewellery was the best-performing sector in the retail industry when it came to year-on-year growth in July, with a 7.2 per cent uptick in sales according to new research.

According to Savills, which collated data by using over 1200 pieces of turnover from more than 50 UK shopping centres, the sporting goods sector was the next best performer in retail with a growth of 6.6 per cent.

Other growth categories included cafes, travel and value or discount stores. 

However, homeware sales decreased by 13.9 per cent in July after despite positive growth in the first half of the year.  

According to Savills, a real estate firm with significant interest in retail property and shopping centres, this could be a result of caution among house buyers and sellers in light of June‘s Brexit referendum and the economic uncertainty that ensued.  

Womenswear and menswear also continued to see sales decline in July – 8.8 per cent and 7.5 per cent downturns respectively – which Savills said was in line with a longer term negative trend. 

Savills also said footfall across its shopping centres in July went up slightly by 0.4 per cent, compared with national average declines of 2.1 per cent, according to the British Retail Consortium and Springboard.

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“Although it is still too early to pick out specific trends based on the result of the EU referendum, value retail has seen an immediate uptick while homeware appears to have felt the impact of some consumer uncertainty,” Savills head of property management Stephen Toal said.

“However, the success of jewellery in July shows that shoppers are still keen to purchase higher value goods.

“It remains to be seen to what extent these trends continue in the second half of the year, and we will be monitoring them closely with a particular focus on Christmas which will provide a strong barometer for consumer sentiment.”

Meanwhile, from January to June this year the electrical sector was the top performing with growth of nearly 20 per cent compared with the same period in 2015. 

Other strong performers over this half-year period period included childrenswear (8.3 per cent), sporting goods (7.6 per cent) and health and beauty (5.2 per cent). 

On the other hand, value retailers dipped 9.6 per cent in that same period, along with confectionery (7.6 per cent) and womenswear (seven per cent).

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