Clothing and footwear stores suffered last month as retail sales volumes fell, latest official figures show.
Retail sales dropped 0.6% between April and May, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The figure was 1.6% down on the same month the previous year.
Total sales volumes in the three months to May were 0.6% higher than a year earlier - but that figure marks the lowest growth since December 1995.
Clothing and footwear stores saw volumes decline by 1.9% over May, while "other" stores - including sectors such as photography and sports - registered a 3% fall.
Retail figures have been better than expected in recent months, but the ONS result was well below market forecasts for a 0.3% increase.
Vicky Redwood, of Capital Economics, said: "We wouldn't be surprised if this marked the start of a period of rather weaker sales growth than of late.
"The credit crunch-driven nature of the slowdown so far appears to have primarily hit spending off the high street.
"But as the deteriorating labour market and future tax rises hit household incomes more generally, we expect a prolonged period of weakness in both retail and non-retail spending."
The results were unveiled as separate figures showed that online sales, which have been extremely robust during the downturn, grew at their slowest rate on record in May.
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