Increased retail spending is set to continue through the rest of 2014, according to a new study by TotallyMoney.com and the Centre for Retail Research.
Indeed, the report has suggested that consumers will spend more than £86 billion on credit cards in this time frame and they will carry out 54 million additional retail transactions.
The report notes that this will represent an 8 per cent increase on credit card retail spend in 2013, when the grand total hit £380 billion.
What’s more, the report has led to the forecast that overall retail spending will increase by 3.4 per cent over the next 12 months, meaning that payments will total £331 billion.
Added to this, the study noted that old habits die hard when it comes to spending on debit cards, with research showing that it has almost doubled (45 per cent) from 2007 to 2014, as compared to an 11 per cent rise on credit.
The report goes on to explain that despite a greater rise in credit card spending for 2014, we are still expected to spend 30 per cent less on credit than debit, so despite a definite shift in consumer spending habits over the past 12 months consumers still remain wedded to their debit cards.
And as spending on debit and credit cards continues to rise, consumers are leaving the house with less cash in their wallets as retail figures project a 1 per cent decline since 2013 and nearly a 5 per cent decline in the use of cheques.
This comes shortly after Kate Davies, the Statistician for Retail Sales at the Office for National Statistics, told the BBC that the move towards the online sphere is one of the most compelling stories to come out of retail figures in recent times.
This has, of course, had an impact on the high street, with a number of high-profile brand stores being put out of business over the last few years.