British shoppers are increasingly shopping online, which could spell challenging times ahead for many high street retailers, according to the latest Office for National Statistics retail sales data for February 2018.

Online retail sales saw a 13.7% increase year-on-year, according to the data, with online food sales rising by 14.0% and non-food sales rising by 13.4%. Non-store retailing saw a 13.8% increase.

Online now accounts for 17.2% of total retail sales in the UK, the ONS data found, with 5.5% of food sales and 13.2% of non-food sales now taking place online.

Overall, year-on-year retail sales were up 1.5% in February, which is down on the 3.3% year-on-year increase recorded in February 2017. Price increases are visible across all retail sectors, however, this has slowed marginally since the start of the year: from 3.1% in December to 2.5% in February.