Footfall edged down 3.1% across all UK retail destinations last week from the previous seven-day period as rain deterred people from going out shopping.
The data from Springboard shows that high streets saw a 5.4% fall, although shopping centres and retail parks were less affected by the weather and experienced respective drops of 1.3% and 0.1%.
This is the second consecutive week-on-week decline and means the gap in overall footfall compared to 2019 has widened again to -22.8% from -18.4% in the week before.
Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at Springboard, said: “The news announced last Monday that regulations will not be eased for another month seems to have acted as a dampener on consumer activity last week, with footfall across UK retail destinations lower than the week before for the second consecutive week despite hot and sunny weather in the first half of the week.
“For most of the UK rain dominated the last few days from Thursday onwards, which inevitably impacted high streets most heavily of the three destination types; here the drop in footfall between Thursday and Saturday was more than twice that between the previous days.”
NAM Implications:
- Why get wet, when online is so reliable and convenient?
- This will be a constant threat to High Street efficiency…
