Retail insurance customers saw their sales values rise in January, for the first time since May.
According to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KMPG's retail sales monitor, for the first month of the year sales increased by 1.1 per cent on a like-for-like basis.
Total sales saw a 3.2 per cent rise compared to January 2008, which counts takings from stores which have opened since the last survey.
Food sales drove the increase, with non-food sales seeing a decline on a year ago.
Discounting attracted people to shops early on in January, but overall sales were down on the same month last year.
Online shopping saw a boost, with non-food, non-store sales being 19.2 per cent higher than the previous January.
However, this represents a decline on December's gain of 30 per cent, which was due to people using the internet for their Christmas shopping.
Retail insurance customers saw a 0.7 per cent drop in December, compared to the same month in 2008.
