Inclement weather over the summer kept shoppers from the High Street

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said sales slid 0.1% in October, compared with a 0.3% rise in September.

Weaker demand for clothing and footwear as a result of the wet summer kept shoppers at home, while higher interest rates also dented sales, analysts said.

The numbers may reinforce calls for the Bank of England to cut interest rates and help stoke demand.

Temporary dip?

Many consumers have curtailed their spending as successive interest rate rises have made their credit card and mortgage repayments more expensive.

"Retail sales have been surprisingly elevated for some time now and today's data shows that this is starting to unwind," said Alan Clarke at BNP Paribas.

While analysts said that the figures may indicate a cooling off in consumer spending, the longer-term trend was still positive.

Sales over the three months to October were up 5.1% from the same period a year ago, and up 1.4% on the previous three month period from May to July.

Discounting

It is thought that aggressive price discounting on the High Street has been largely supporting sales growth over the past year as the Bank of England has notched up rates to their current six-year peak of 5.75%.

But even so, some shops are still struggling to pull in customers.

Fashion retailers French Connection and Next issued downbeat trading statements earlier this month, saying they had become cautious about the consumer environment and trading prospects.

Earlier on Thursday, bookseller and stationer WH Smith also said it remained cautious about the trading environment as it reported a 1% fall in like-for-like sales for the past 10 weeks.