UK retail sales rise 0.5% but online share dips to 28.1%

For UK retailers and the agencies running their performance media, the April 2026 release is a useful corrective to the easy narrative that the cost of living squeeze has eased and consumers are spending freely again. The quarterly trend is positive, but volumes are still 1.7% below their pre-pandemic February 2020 level and the monthly numbers remain choppy. Forecasting weekly demand off the back of one upbeat or one downbeat month is a fast way to mis-pace inventory, ad spend, and discounting.

The online share story is more interesting than the headline implies. A drop from 28.7% to 28.1% sounds minor, but on a £45 billion-a-month base it represents real spend shifting back toward physical retail, particularly in clothing where weather drove footfall decisions. For ecommerce brands selling clothing or seasonal categories, that is a signal to weight April-style months toward acquisition-led PPC and away from defensive remarketing: shoppers are less locked into the online journey than they were earlier in the quarter. Google Ads for ecommerce works hardest in conditions like these because Shopping campaign coverage compensates for the discovery shoppers are doing in physical aisles before converting online.

The other operational read is on fuel. A 10.2% monthly fall in automotive fuel sales is the steepest since November 2020. That has a knock-on for any client running geo-targeted PPC for forecourts, vehicle servicing, or click-and-collect retail: footfall on those journeys is genuinely lower this month, not just being recorded differently. Bid modifiers and dayparting that lean on commuter travel patterns are worth a sanity check.

For B2B brands selling to retailers (ERP, returns, logistics, fulfilment, payment platforms), the data underlines a procurement environment where retailers are still revising forecasts down month to month. That is reflected in our earlier ONS analysis of UK business input costs and aligns with the cautious tone of the BRC market intelligence. Sales cycles into retail buyers will be longer this quarter, not shorter, and the language in cold outreach should reflect that.

Year-on-year online value growth of 9.3% remains strong though, well ahead of overall volume growth of 1.1%. Online keeps gaining share on a trend basis even when individual months wobble, which is the more important number to anchor budget planning around. The agencies that win in this environment treat monthly prints as scheduling noise and 3-month or 12-month trends as the strategy signal.