New data Friday (August 21) showed retail sales in July surged past pre-crisis levels.
Volumes were up 3.6% from June - above all economist forecasts.
Compared with February - before the crisis really hit home - they were up 3 percent.
The numbers show retailing enjoying a much faster bounce-back than most of the economy.
But the headline figure masks very different stories for different types of shops.
Supermarkets and food shops have enjoyed robust growth as people eat more at home.
Household goods stores have also done well as locked-down consumers spend on their homes.
But clothing and footwear stores have really suffered, with sales still down 25 percent on a year ago.
Companies including Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Dixons Carphone and WH Smith have announced thousands of redundancies as sales stay weak.
The damage to government finances evident too.
Separate figures Friday showed total public debt soaring past two trillion pounds for the first time - that's 2.65 trillion dollars.
Now unemployment numbers are forecast to rise sharply once a government job support scheme stops at the end of October.
Many economists think that means the recovery in retail spending could prove short lived.
