Heatwave draws out shoppers
New figures have shown that footfall rose by 4.1% last week across UK retail destinations compared to the prior seven days as shoppers made the most of the dry and sunny weather.
The data from Springboard has revealed that footfall in high streets climbed by 5%, although the uplift in coastal towns was even better at 8.3%.
Meanwhile the number of visits to retail parks and shopping centres rose by 2.5% and 3.7% respectively.
However, temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius on Friday led to a drop of 1.2% as more people worked from home. In addition, footfall declined across every type of town over the weekend as the rain hit.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “The very hot weather was a dominant feature of last week, increasing footfall across UK retail destinations, but making high streets the choice for consumers until Friday. Inevitably, once the rain hit on Saturday it was the enclosed environments of shopping centres that became more appealing.”
Last week’s increase meant that the gap from the 2019 footfall level narrowed slightly to -11.4% across all retail destinations from -12.8% in the week before.
