Despite an expected price decrease for clothing as inflation eases, fewer people expect to be spending discretionary income on the category, according to the Retail Trend Tracker: Consumer Sentiment August report from GlobalData, which polled 2,000 consumers.

The survey, which provides a complete picture of how people are feeling, their views on the future of the economy and, most importantly, what this means for retail spending both generally and across specific sectors, showed over a third (36%) of people believed they would spend less on clothing in the next six months compared with 19% who would spend more over the same period.

Meanwhile, the survey noted fewer people – both on a month-on-month and year-on-year basis – consider sustainability an important factor when determining which retailer they buy clothing from.

Over two fifths (41.9%) surveyed said they considered sustainability a determiner of where they buy clothing from compared with 44% last year and 43.7% last year.

Earlier this month in response to the CPI inflation figures recording a 6.8% fall in headline inflation, British Retail Consortium chief executive Helen Dickinson noted the fall in clothing prices adding retailers were mitigating wet weather with larger discounts across their ranges.

However, she said some global commodity prices were still subject to pressure as a result of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. She urged the UK Government to freeze business rates or risk adding a £400m ($505.28m) additional pressure on prices.