LONDON (Reuters] – British retailers raised concerns Wednesday about pre-Christmas price hikes following a report that the average selling price for goods had fallen by the smallest percentage year on year since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic.

British Retail Consortium said that shop prices were up 0.4% for October, 0.4% more than the year prior and 0.4% less than the year before. It is the first year-on-year decrease since January 2020.

Higher food prices led to price rises of 0.5% compared with a year prior.

Helen Dickinson (BRC chief executive) stated, “It’s now evident that increased costs caused by labour shortages, supply chains issues and rising commodity price have started filtering through the consumer.”

According to her, three in five retailers were planning on raising prices before Christmas.

BRC’s Shop Price Index covers a smaller range of spending than that of the Bank of England’s Consumer Price Index, which reached 3.2% in August 2012.

Huw Pill, BoE Chief Economic Economist, forecasted last week that inflation will soon exceed 5%. That’s more than twice what the BoE has set as its target. The financial markets are expecting the central banks to increase interest rates next week for the first times since the outbreak of the pandemic.

BRC data are compiled by NielsenIQ, a market research firm. According to NielsenIQ’s analysis of rising prices, this could result in a decrease in discretionary spending.