Black Friday soaks up spend says Springboard
Somewhat inevitably, given that last week followed directly on from the furore of Black Friday and included Cyber Monday which of course is online focussed, footfall dropped significantly from the same week in 2017. While this was not unexpected the magnitude of decline, at -5.5%, was virtually double that of the -3.1% in 2017. Furthermore all three destination types were impacted in similar degrees this year with drops ranging from -4.3% in retail parks, to -6.5% in shopping centres. In contrast to this, last year it was most definitely high streets that were hit hardest with a decline in footfall of -4.5% compared with -2.6% in shopping centres and just -0.3% in retail parks.
Tuesday last week was by far the worst day for footfall, with double digit drops across all three destination types. Activity improved marginally over the week, culminating in an uplift in footfall of +0.5% on Friday, possibly driven by click and collect activity.
Geographically, the decline was universal; and it was all about trying to identify those areas with the smallest decrease. For high streets, these were Northern Ireland and Wales (-0.3% and -1.8%) while in seven of the eight remaining areas the drop was in excess of -6%. In shopping centres, the result was even more bleak with declines in footfall in excess of -4% in every area. And while retail parks were a little more resilient, in five areas the drop was more than -4%, reaching -10.3% in the West Midlands.”
