Bar sales slump as furniture and electrical surge

Furniture and electrical stores and supermarkets have gained sales in recent months, but bars were the only business to post significant falls.

The latest CSO figures show electrical goods as the winner across 13 types of retailers, with sales surging 18.4% in terms of the volume of goods sold in the three months to the end of February, from a year earlier (a period that covers most of the Christmas spending season).