Easter sales forecast is bleak for fashion sector

Easter sales aren’t expected to provide much of a boost to the fashion retail sector with two predictions that UK consumers are likely to spend more time dining at home or eating out than shopping for clothes this long weekend.

One prediction comes from Rendle Intelligence and Insights whose CEO Diane Wehrle said that what’s traditionally a peak trading weekend “will likely experience sluggish sales”. And she thinks poor weather “is also likely to hamper shoppers splurging on Spring fashion collections this weekend, continuing the trend of challenging conditions for fashion sales this year”.

Her view is that overall sales will be up 5% year on year, but the drivers will be entertainment and hospitality, although health & beauty should also benefit.

The first two categories should rise in double digits but health & beauty at +9% should also impress.

So how bad might fashion sales be? Well, they rose 4% year on year for Easter 2023, but Wehrle is bleakly predicting a 2% drop this time. Clearly the bad weather won’t help, but given that Easter is quite early this year — before we’ve enjoyed any really warm days — it would always have been a stretch to imagine consumers going spring fashion crazy.

But as mentioned earlier, consumers are likely to be thinking more about food and drink than fashion and Rendle said evidence on sales in Easter 2023 and most recently in January and February 2024 indicates that they’re now “focusing far more on spending on experiences and leisure and on self care rather than on products”.

Wehrle’s view seems to partly tally with that of Eleanor Simpson-Gould, Senior Retail Analyst at GlobalData. She said UK consumers are set to spend £1.9 billion this Easter, a 4% increase, but food and drink is expected to drive the uplift.

However, GlobalData is a bit more upbeat overall and in its UK Easter Intentions 2024 report, also said the proportion of consumers planning to purchase at least one item this year has increased by 6.8 percentage points to 69% since 2023. This marks the highest level of intended consumer participation in three years.

Simpson-Gould said intention to purchase Easter gifts for partners and parents has increased 7ppts to 43.9% and 5ppts to 26.1%, respectively, versus last year, “signalling that consumers are feeling less constrained to limit buying Easter gifts for just children”.

And the proportion of consumers cutting back on spending this Easter because of the cost-of-living crisis has fallen 14.8 percentage points since last year to 50.1%.