Retail sales fall for first time in two years

Hopes that Britain can weather the worldwide credit crunch were dampened as data showed the first fall in retail sales for more than two years. The signs of a slowdown in high-street spending followed figures yesterday showing factory-gate inflation at a 17-year high, raising the spectre of slowing growth and rising prices. Amid growing concern in Downing Street about falling house prices and the credit crunch, the gloomy picture of the retail sector emerged today from the British Retail Consortium. The BRC said like-for-like sales, which exclude the effects of new floor space, fell 1.6% in the year to March, compared with March 2007, when sales rose 3.9%. It was the biggest fall since July 2005, when shops were affected by bad weather.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/15/retail.creditcrunch

Rising prices? Falling sales? Does this herald a return to the stagflation we last saw in the 1970s?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/15/economics.retail