UK “shop price inflation” usually refers to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) Shop Price Monitor: a focused indicator of price changes for selected goods in selected shops. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Consumer Prices Index (CPI), by contrast, measures average price changes across a much broader basket of household consumption, including services. They are different measures, so their headline rates are not directly interchangeable.
What the BRC Shop Price Monitor measures
The BRC describes its Shop Price Monitor as a proxy for the direction of prices in retail outlets, not a complete measure of household inflation. Nielsen administers and analyses the data on the BRC’s behalf. The monitor was launched to track prices for 500 commonly bought high-street products.
Monthly prices are collected from the same stores across five large urban areas spread around the UK. The sample includes different types of outlet and location, from out-of-town superstores and department stores to local parades and shopping centres, and includes both multiple retailers and independent shops. The BRC methodology reports around 6,500–7,000 price points per period. Individual product classes are weighted using all-household expenditure from the Family Expenditure Survey.
The monitor groups products into seven main purchase sectors: food; DIY, gardening and hardware; furniture, books, stationery and home entertainment; electrical; clothing and footwear; and other non-food. This focus makes it useful as a signal about prices in sampled shops, but it does not represent every item a household buys or every place it spends. BRC Shop Price Monitor methodology
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What ONS CPI measures
CPI measures the average change in prices of goods and services bought for consumption within the UK. Its reference population includes UK households, foreign visitors to the UK and residents of communal establishments such as university halls and care homes. Spending by UK households abroad is excluded.
Unlike the BRC monitor, CPI is not limited to goods sold in shops: it covers household consumption across goods and services. ONS describes CPIH as its lead and more comprehensive consumer-inflation measure. CPI continues to be published and is used for the government’s inflation target. ONS Consumer Price Inflation QMI
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CPI and CPIH treat housing costs differently
CPI excludes owner-occupier housing costs and Council Tax. CPIH includes both, alongside CPI’s coverage. The distinction matters when discussing household costs: a CPI figure does not include those two items, while CPIH is designed to give a broader view of consumer inflation that does.
Why the two inflation rates can differ
The BRC monitor and CPI track different baskets, populations and weighting arrangements. BRC’s selected retail goods sample is a narrower proxy; CPI represents a wider range of household consumption. A price movement in the goods and stores covered by the monitor therefore need not match the average change across CPI’s broader basket.
ONS CPIH/CPI methodology uses annually chain-linked, fixed-quantity indices within each year and around 760 representative items. ONS updates the representative basket annually, and since March 2026 has used point-of-sale scanner data from some grocery retailers. CPI is therefore not simply a small survey of physical products. ONS CPIH/CPI methodology
| Comparison | BRC Shop Price Monitor | ONS CPI |
|---|---|---|
| What it represents | A focused proxy for price movements in selected retail goods | Average price change across a broad basket of household consumption, including goods and services |
| Coverage and sample | 500 commonly bought products across seven sectors, sampled in selected shops in five large urban areas; around 6,500–7,000 price points per period (BRC methodology) | Around 760 representative items in the ONS CPIH/CPI methodology, with broader consumption coverage |
| Frequency | Monthly data collection | Monthly index |
| Weighting and population | Product-class weights based on all-household Family Expenditure Survey spending | Weights reflect household consumption; the reference population includes UK households, visitors to the UK and communal-establishment residents |
| Housing costs | A retail-goods monitor, not a household-wide cost-of-living measure | CPI excludes owner-occupier housing costs and Council Tax; CPIH includes both |
How to read a shop-price inflation headline
- Check the source: “Shop price inflation” in this context generally means the BRC Shop Price Monitor, not CPI.
- Check the reference period: inflation figures need a month or other period because rates change over time.
- Do not treat the rate as your own: a national average cannot show how quickly one household’s costs are rising; spending patterns vary.
- Compare like with like: before comparing BRC and ONS rates, account for their different coverage and weighting.
Dated example: BRC results for August 2026
The latest detailed ungated BRC release reviewed for this article covers 1–7 August 2026. It reported year-on-year shop-price inflation of 1.5%, with food inflation at 2.8% and non-food inflation at 0.9%. Within food, fresh-food inflation was 3.0% and ambient-food inflation was 2.5%. These are BRC Shop Price Monitor results for August 2026, not CPI figures. BRC August 2026 Shop Price Monitor release
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BRC Chief Executive Helen Dickinson said shop-price inflation had risen to its highest level in over two years, while remaining below the headline CPI. That is the BRC’s interpretation of the period’s figures; it does not make the two measures equivalent. The BRC site also lists a 29 September 2026 member-access report, but its detailed figures were not publicly accessible, so the August results should not be described as the latest BRC release overall. BRC August 2026 release
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