Springboard registers post-Christmas slump in shoppers
Somewhat inevitably given that the holiday season came to an end, footfall last week was 4.1% lower than the previous seven-day period, which was Christmas week itself. However, a speck of good news is that this was not as great as the -6% drop in footfall over the week last year.
On an annual basis, the result was also more favourable than last year, with an annual rise of +2.6% compared with just +0.3% in the first week of 2018. However, caution needs to be taken when interpreting these results as part of this improved year on year performance is due to the calendar shifting forward by one day from 2018. This means that this year we are comparing New Year’s Eve (a working day) with New Year’s Day 2018 (a bank holiday), and hence footfall rose annually on this one day by +152%. Footfall dipped the following day (New Year’s Day) compared with 2nd January last year, but this was not as great as the rise the day before so supporting the result for the week as a whole.
Of the three destination types high streets were the strongest performer over the week, with a rise in footfall of +4.2% from last year, and a drop of only -1.9% from the previous seven days. While footfall in retail parks dropped by just -0.6% over the week, this translated into only a modest annual increase of +0.1%. And finally some good news for shopping centres as, despite footfall in shopping centres being 11.8% lower last week than the week before, it was still +1.7% higher than last year.
