The July 7th bomb attacks have led to the worst central London July shopping figures in three years.
Sales slumped by almost 9 per cent compared with last year, following with a rise of 3.6 per cent in June.
Analysts for the London Retail Consortium/KPMG report said shoppers seemed to have been opting for out-of-town centres following the fatal suicide attacks on London.
John Lewis, seen as a barometer of sales in general, said numbers were down around 10 per cent on the same time last year in its Oxford Street store. However, they were correspondingly up in out-of-town stores.
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The sharp fall in central London sales in July compares with a much smaller decline of 1.9 per cent for the United Kingdom as a whole.