The snow boosted food sales in the first week of January as people stocked up on essentials, but hit non-food, especially discretionary items. When the weather improved, food sales slowed but non-food staged a partial recovery. Over the month, food, clothing and footwear showed gains on a year ago, but homewares and furniture showed declines.

Non-food non-store sales, reflecting internet, mail-order and phone sales, in January were 14.6% higher than a year ago compared with 26.5% in December. Some benefited from shoppers buying online when snow prevented them from getting out.

BRC director general Stephen Robertson, said: “An awful start to the year and in stark contrast to an upbeat December. This is the worst January growth in total sales in the 15 years we’ve been running the survey.

“It was a month of two halves with a focus on must-haves early on. The coldest January since 1987 boosted food sales at the start of the month, as shoppers stocked up. But food sales growth melted with the snow. The month as a whole was significantly weaker than December.

And Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG, said: “A very mixed performance in January which was impacted by a number of factors. The snow in the early part of the month caused consumers to stock up on food related items as travelling the country became treacherous while non-food suffered. As the month progressed, clothing and footwear picked up considerably but other non-food sectors continued to show weakness.

“Although the results were flattered by the impact of higher shop prices, given the higher VAT rate in January 2010 compared to January 2009, this was less pronounced than in December. The underlying trend is difficult to read but there is no doubt that the strong sales we saw in December 2009 are not indicative of the trend for the rest of this year.”

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