As Christmas approaches, unseasonable weather and a looming grocery price war have confounded predictions of a vintage retail year.

Recent news from the grocery sector should teach us that retail is impossible to predict. So it is with more than a little nervousness that I am sticking my head above the parapet.

Christmas trading will be OKish. Still record sales by value but growth will not be quite what the first half of the year might have suggested.

I have thought for a while now that 2014 would be the best year we would have. The recovery doesn’t really have sufficient momentum to sustain the growth trajectory into next year. I had thought it would last until Christmas but for various reasons, momentum is already staring to slow.

The last two months have been incredibly challenging for the trade as a whole, but particularly the two largest components – food and clothing.

In food we do not yet have a price war, but we are moving inexorably towards one. This is just the beginning, waiting for Tesco to move off the back foot and onto the front. Sooner or later, the business will look to reassert market leadership and start actually leading the market again.

This has become a price-driven market and the only way it can take back control of the competitive agenda is to set prices, and the new economics of UK food retailing.

Meanwhile, grocery sector sales are already in zero growth territory and moving into negative.

In clothing, unseasonably warm weather in September has spilled into October. Autumn/winter apparel sales have been hit hard. While some of that stock might yet be sold, it will not be at full price. So here too, we are seeing a marked slowdown in sales momentum.

I am now expecting a more subdued trading outlook for the last two months of the year with November retail sales by value up 3.5% (3.8% in 2013) and December up 3.7% (4.3% in 2013).

December’s sales of £42bn will still be the highest ever recorded but will disappoint an industry that allowed itself to be more optimistic earlier in the year. My forecasts add up to total retail sales for calendar 2014 of £333.3bn, up £12.4bn on last year representing growth of 3.9%.

Against this background it is hard to see full-price sales in the Christmas run-in holding up and price promotions will be an even bigger feature than they were last year.

Looking beyond, a delay in any interest rate increases is good news but 2015 promises to be a tough year. Static real wages will continue to rein in disposable incomes and online growth will force further store closures.

Twelve months ago in this column I suggested that 2014 would be a year of major changes at the top of UK retailers. It has been exactly that, but on an even more dramatic scale than I imagined.

I am certain that 2015 will be equally busy. This is a different trading climate from any we have seen. There are few of what used to be called merchants out there. Too often, the idea of selling product gets totally lost in a sea of big data, tech and other support players.

Retailers have never needed loyalty as much, and customers have never has so much opportunity and cause to be disloyal.

  • Richard Hyman, founder, Richardtalksretail.com