In the face of the cost-of-living crisis, last week offered a glimmer of optimism for retailers, with a rise in footfall across UK retail destinations from the week before, according to retail expert Springboard.
This result is in line with pre-Covid trends when footfall rose across UK retail destinations in the equivalent week in every year since 2013.
The rise in footfall last week was greater than in the same week in every year between 2013 and 2018, but it was a third lower than in the same week in 2019, demonstrating a degree of consumer caution around spending this year.
Springboard marketing and insights director Diane Wehrle said: “All three destination types [high streets, shopping centres, and retail parks] benefited from the uplift in shopper activity, but the largest week-on-week increases occurred in high streets and shopping centres. Somewhat inevitably, given their critical mass of retailers, it was large city centres and Central London that fared the best of any type of town, with far more modest rises in market towns and in Outer London.
“Footfall rose from the week before on every day apart from Friday, when it was lower than last week due to the high comparable resulting from the increase in footfall on Black Friday”
“Footfall rose from the week before on every day apart from Friday, when it was lower than last week due to the high comparable resulting from the increase in footfall on Black Friday. The week-on-week increase in footfall was universal across all UK geographies, with particularly strong uplifts in the south-west, Wales and Northern Ireland. The increase in footfall from last week doubled the uplift from 2021 and helped to narrow the gap from the 2019 level.”
Springboard provides insights on bricks-and-mortar retail activity, tracking and forecasting footfall and delivering performance metrics across all key retail destination types. It records more than 70 million footfall counts per week at 4,500 counting points across 480 different shopping sites in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.