Furniture and lighting sales in England, Wales and Scotland climbed in December 2021 compared with November, but were below December 2020 and 2019 while flooring sales plunged but almost matched December 2019.
Furniture and lighting saw sales rose by 11% to £1.461bn compared with November 2021, according to Office for National Statistics data, but were 4.72% down on December 2020 and 3.11% lower than December 2019.
December 2021 was the sixth best month since January 1986, behind December 2020 (£1.53bn), December 2018 (£1.515bn), December 2019 (£1.507bn), September 2020 £1.499bn) and June 2021 (£1.48bn).
Sales in 2021 totalled £14.78bn, up 12% on 2020 and 0.39% below 2019.
Flooring sales experienced the normal seasonal drop in December 2021, but sales almost matched December 2019.
Sales dropped by 25.28% compared with November 2021 to £136.656m, 102.6% higher than December 2020 and 0.79% below December 2019.
December 2021 was the 376th best month of 432 since January 1986.
Sales in 2021 totalled £1.7415bn (peaking in June at £193.7m), 30.1% higher than 2020 and 14.14% higher than in 2019.
To put the figures into context, September 2020 was the strongest pandemic period performance with sales of £204.996m, but that was the first time since September 2014 monthly sales had topped £200m (£234.9m).
The top ten performing months remain March 2008 (£290.4m), September 2007 (£270.75m), March 1997 (£266.42m), June 1997 (£261.4m), November 2007 (£259m), March 2009 (£258.28m), June 2007 (£256.88m), December 1997 (£251.62m) and September 2009 (£251.39m).
The December data is preliminary and subject to revision.
