Footfall figures offer festive cheer
Consumers hit the shops
With a handful of shopping days until Christmas Day, figures from FootFall show that consumers have been hitting the shops, with a week-on-week increase in shopper visits of 8.1 per cent.
Even though the past week has been more fruitful for retailers, FootFall has recorded a year-on-year decline of 2.5 per cent.
David Smyth, director of marketing and strategy at FootFall comments: “The 2.5 per cent fall year-on-year, although higher than we anticipated, is not too surprising. The same week last year was the final full week of trading before Christmas Day.”
Monday also saw the last day to order online and guarantee pre-Christmas delivery, so shoppers wanting to make sure the gifts they buy arrive on time will now have to resort to the traditional high street shops.
Smyth said: “Every year there is a last minute surge in shoppers. This year will be no different as the usual time-starved consumers make the last minute dash to the shops. The difference this year is that the retailers probably won’t have to rely on the drastic last minute sales and reductions to get shopper numbers and volumes up as their earlier strategy of flash promotions and targeted discounts probably managed to smooth the increases over a longer period.”
