Bus strike blamed for slowing of spending increase in shops

The lowest increase in consumer spending in physical shops in more than two years was recorded in September with the Dublin Bus strike blamed for the sluggish growth.

However, a sharp rise in online spending offset the difficulties experienced by high-street retailers and led to year-on-year spending going up by just over 5 per cent, figures published this morning indicate.

According to the latest Visa consumer spending index, expenditure across all categories is up just over 5 per cent compared with 12 months previously.

The latest increase was weaker than the average seen over the course of the last two years, with a wide divergence between the rate of expansion in spending via ecommerce and face-to-face categories once recorded in September.

In September, online spending was up 13.4 per cent compared with a year ago but it was a different story when it came to face- to-face spending, which recorded an increase of just 0.8 per cent year on year, the weakest expansion in the 25 months of the series to date.