A survey conducted by the National Survey of Local Shopping Patterns (NSLSP) revealed that shoppers are spending more money during a shopping trip, but are visiting retail commercial properties less frequently.
Many people are now turning their shopping visits into a day trip and are favouring larger out-of-town retail parks, rather than the high street. Therefore people are willing to part with more cash in a single shopping spree.
Mark Teale, Head of Retail Research at CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) expressed: “Shoppers are increasingly attracted to larger but more distant trading locations that offer a greater choice of retailers and a more modern shopping experience. This in turn is leading to a decline in the average number of trips made by consumers. As these shopping patterns are largely determined by the mix of retailers and travel distance or cost, it’s likely that the recent surge in fuel cost inflation will result in a further decline in the average number of shopping trips made by consumers.”
The NSLSP was established 16 years ago and is today the largest national survey of consumer shopping trends in the retail sector. The results from the survey are used in order to predict what impacts future retail commercial property developments will have on consumer shopping trends. Over 12 million households in the UK responded to the survey.
Key findings during 1998 to 2009 included:
Speaking of the results, Mr Teale stated: “Whether the decline in shopping trip frequency actually matters is a moot point. As retail sales grew significantly over the period of the study – and continued to grow even following the onset of the 2007 recession – the decline in trip frequency implies a significant increase in average trip spends. The negative effects suffered by so many smaller secondary or tertiary trading locations over the last three years consequently appear more to do with continuing market share movements between retail destinations within the stock rather than outside economic trends.
Only time will tell if consumer spending in retail commercial properties will continue to be; ‘spend more, but less frequently’. But if people carry on favouring out-of-town shopping centres, what will happen to the British high street?
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