Clothing and footwear will fare the worst as shoppers choose to commit the majority of their spend to food. The sector is set to decline by £11.1bn or 20.6% in 2020, according to GlobalData forecasts.

This is equivalent to the combined clothing sales of the three market leaders Primark, Marks & Spencer and Next. 

According to GlobalData, spend on non-food categories in general is also forecast to decline by 8.9% as consumers shun non-essential items. The impact on non-food is far worse even than during the financial crisis of 2009, when sales fell 2.9%.