New statistics from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) have indicated that online sales grew in February, which could be good news for courier companies in the UK.

According to February's BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor, online sales posted year-on-year growth of 10.9 per cent last month. Overall, like-for-like sales grew by 2.7 per cent and on a total basis sales were up by 4.4 per cent.

"This good overall growth has been achieved despite a sluggish set of numbers from the food and drink sector, where recent events may have caused consumers to change their buying habits within the meat sector," said KPMG head of retail David McCorquodale.

BRC director-general Helen Dickinson warned against reading the rebound as the start of a "permanent turnaround", but observed that there had been growth across all parts of the retail sector in February, including home and big-ticket products.

The findings seem to conflict with those of the most recent Confederation of British Industry Distributive Trades Survey, which indicated that the rate of retail sales growth slowed in February.

Author:  Gillian Walters