Spending on the high street dropped last month, as consumers moved online to take advantage of Black Friday sales. Visa’s Irish consumer spending index, produced by IHS Markit, a UK analytics company, found that consumer spending had risen by 1 per cent year-on-year. However, this rate of annual growth was down by 4 per cent compared with October. High street retailers suffered during the month, with face-to-face spending down by more than 4 per cent in November compared with the same month in 2017. By contrast, online spending increased by 12 per cent during the month year-on-year.

Source: The Times December 18, 2018 00:09 UTC