After the flood of mixed Christmas trading updates from the high street over the past few weeks, the main focus on Friday will be the release of the official UK retail sales data for December.
The British Retail Consortium survey, released the week before last, showed that sales between 26 November and 30 December were 1.4% higher than a year earlier.
The BRC data also suggested there was faster growth in spending on clothing than many other items and that online spending rose more significantly than in-store spending, while food purchases also increased pretty quickly.
Given that the BRC has an invested interest in promoting the industry, it will be interesting to see if the Office for National Statistics' numbers match up.
The final day of the week is fairly light on the corporate diary, with just one small cap retailer scheduled to issue a trading update.
Back at the end of November, womenswear value retailer Bonmarche Holdings PLC (LON:BON) saw its shares soar after the company said its pretax profit more than doubled to ?4.2mln in the first half of its financial year, even though revenue grew by just 5.0%.
The group said its like-for-like sales for in the half-year to September 30 rose by 4.3% year-on-year, with online sales surging by 39%, although store-only like-for-likes were only up 1.6%.
Bonmarche's overall product gross margin remained level with last year in the first half, with profits boosted by a fall in administrative and distribution costs.
Investors will be hoping for more of the same over the key Christmas period given the BRC indications for faster growth in spending on clothing.
Trading updates: Bonmarche Holdings PLC (BON), Record PLC (LON:REC)
Economic data: UK retail sales; US consumer sentiment