It’s been a roller coaster ride for UK high streets and malls in recent months what with weather woes, Brexit blues or boom, online chipping away at physical stores and lifestyle changes meaning many of us shop differently than we used to.
More figures about the state of UK retailing in June. More to get depressed about. Springboard has just released its June footfall figures and they show overall visitor traffic falling 2.8%. In detail, that meant a 3.7% drop to high streets, a 1% fall to retail parks and a 2.3% drop at shopping centres.
We’ve heard some very downbeat assessments of May’s retail performance in the UK recently so what does the latest report bring? Well, the news is a bit better. According to specialist footfall tracker Springboard, overall footfall managed a 0.3% rise last month.
Weather forecasters can get it wrong. Retail forecasters can get it even more wrong. They predicted an uptick in retail footfall this Easter weekend but what we got was a drop. Not that either can be blamed as forecasting (speaking as a trend forecaster) isn’t an exact science. That’s very true when it comes to…
How did UK retail footfall fare in February? Hard to tell! The latest figures appear to show a clear cut trend but scratch the surface and you can see all sorts of movements developing with UK consumers turning into after-dark shoppers. So, let’s go for face value first: The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Springboard said…
OK, first question: Did UK shoppers hit the stores in January? Yes! That was the resounding answer from the latest footfall stats released today by the British Retail Consortium and Springboard. In fact, footfall rose 1.2% year-on-year. It may be a small number in universal terms but in terms of store footfall it was big……
If you thought I was done with all those Christmas shopping reports, think again. My readers don’t escape that easily. The reason? The latest report from Springboard about shopper footfall during December. You see it’s not only sales that count – actual shopping trips are key to the health of the retail sector and give…
OK, first the apology – this report has some pretty dry figures so don’t expect sexy factoids. Second the excuse – if we really want to see what’s happening in retail, then we need to look at such figures. And as the Christmas season is always a game-changer for the sector, then the figures become…
It was all fairly inevitable. In the UK at least. Black Friday migrated more fully online than forecasters predicted. While many physical stores were underwhelmed by demand, websites crashed and customers were left frustrated.
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