Rain dampens UK shopper numbers - Springboard
By Frank Prenesti
Date: Monday 21 Jun 2021
(Sharecast News) - UK shopper numbers fell 3.1 % in the week to June 19 compared with the previous week, as consumers were deterred by rain and delay in Covid lockdown easing, data from researcher Springboard revealed on Monday.
Footfall was down 22.8% year on year compared with the same week in 2019.
In shopping centres and retail parks, where rain impacts trips to a lesser degree, footfall dropped by 1.3% and 0.1% respectively.
Over the four days from Sunday to Wednesday footfall across all destinations declined by an average of 3.5%, on Thursday and Friday when the rain hit the UK the decline was more severe at 5.1% and only on Saturday when the rain eased did footfall recover with a rise of 1.1%.
The second consecutive week-on-week decline meant that the gap in footfall from 2019 once again widened to 22.8% across all retail destinations from 18.4% in the week before, and to 30.4% in high streets from just 21.4% in the previous week. In contrast in retail parks, despite a marginal drop in footfall from the week before of 0.1%, the gap from 2019 narrowed to just 0.2% from 2.4% in the previous week.
"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," said Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard.
"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."
Email this article to a friend
or share it with one of these popular networks:
You are here: news
10 Lower Thames St,
London EC3R 6EN