While retailers are eagerly anticipating the Christmas rush and the boom in profits it generally leads to, spirits have been somewhat dampened by recent news on the high street. After a massively successful summer season, it appears that the change in weather has driven consumers back indoors, with small local retailers particularly suffering from a drop in footfall.
In fact, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and their partners Springboard, footfall in October plummeted by 2.9 per cent compared to the figures from the same period last year. This has brought the performance of the retail industry down to the lowest level since the start of the year on a three month rolling basis.
The decline began in August, with a relatively minor 0.9 per cent drop in shopper numbers when compared to the previous year. This accelerated in September when 2.5 per cent fewer consumers chose to visit the high street, shopping centres and out of town retail parks – presumably, those who had previously chosen to visit local shopping areas turned to the internet amidst heavy rainfall and chilly conditions.
Director General of the BRC, Helen Dickinson, believes that the drop in footfall has had a detrimental effect upon regional vacancy rates.
She says; “Despite the tentative optimism in the air, it’s clear that conditions remain challenging.
“Retailers will be hoping that a festive boost to browsing and buying puts things back on a more even keel over the coming months.
“There are nearly twelve percentage points between London’s vacancy rate and Northern Ireland’s, and the latter’s increase is coupled with an equally worrying steep drop in shopper numbers.”
In October, the high street proved to be the greatest casualty of the decrease in consumer activity, with footfall dropping by 3.6 per cent when compared to October 2012. Shopping centres fared little better, maintaining a stable 2.9 per cent decline from September.
However, the performance of out of town retail parks managed to improve slightly, climbing to a decline in footfall of only 1.2 per cent. Retail Insights Director at Springboard, Diane Wehrle, believes this is due to a change in consumer habits working in the favour of these locations.
She says; “The likelihood of the weather being at least part of the issue is substantiated by the fact that this replicates a similar trend to October last year when high streets recorded a drop in footfall which was 0.5 percentage points greater than in shopping centres.
“Out of town locations have clearly been the most resilient, with an annual drop in footfall of less than half that recorded in shopping centres and a third of the drop in high street footfall – clearly the result of the recorded demand for leisure, household and games products.”
With internet shopping again expected to increase in popularity this Christmas, small retailers may find themselves without the boom in trading they were hoping for. They must simply hope that November’s results prove to be a little more positive.
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