Total retail sales improved 3.4% year on year, compared with a 1.6% decline in June 2019, according to the BRC-KPMG retail sales monitor. This was far above the three- and 12-month average declines of 6.4% and 2.1% respectively.

Like-for-like UK sales, excluding non-essential stores but including online sales, also grew 10.9% from the same month last year when they had decreased 2.2% from 2018.

In the three months to June 2020, in-store non-food sales declined 46.8% on a total and 11.3% on a like-for-like basis, which was worse than the 12-month average decline of 16.5%.