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BRC-SPRINGBOARD FOOTFALL MONITOR: CHRISTMAS FOOTFALL STARTS TO BUILD | | December 5, 2012 | | 
Summary
Week commencing 26 November 2012
- The year-on-year comparisons showed that footfall in all locations fell compared with the same week last year, down 3.7%.
- This is against tough comparatives last year when a public sector strike saw a sharp rise in footfall as many took advantage of a work-free day to go shopping.
- The number of shoppers in out-of-town locations fell sharply, down 5.7%, followed by shopping centres and high streets which fell by 5.5% and 2.1% respectively.
- Footfall in all locations increased on a week-on-week basis, up 7.3%.
- Shopping centres saw the biggest boost to footfall week-on-week, up by 12.2%, followed by the high street (7.3%) and out-of-town (1.8%).
Week commencing 19 November 2012
- Footfall was down significantly in all locations on an annual basis, falling 4.4%.
- Footfall in shopping centres saw the biggest fall, decreasing 5.3%, followed by high streets and out-of-town locations which fell 4.7% and 2.5% respectively.
- On a week-on-week basis, footfall was marginally down in all locations.
- The high street and out-of-town locations saw footfall decline 1.1% while in shopping centres it fell just 0.6%.
Stephen Robertson, British Retail Consortium Director General, said "Shopper numbers went up by 7.3 per cent last week compared with the previous week, suggesting that passing the ‘one month to go' mark, coupled with payday, motivated many to start making some headway on their Christmas lists. Shopping centres saw some particularly strong growth, which is likely to be the result of many favouring shopping under shelter when bad weather battered much of the UK.
"But, footfall was down compared with the same week in 2011, indicating that some are holding back on festive shopping more than they did last year. It's important to note that the same week last year coincided with a public sector strike and so comparisons are against unusually high levels.
"This trend of taking care not to spend too much too soon paints a similar picture to the November Retail Sales Monitor, and confirms that there's all to play for as Christmas gets ever closer."
Diane Wehrle, Research Director at Springboard, said: "Footfall has dropped in all retail environments from 2011 over the last three weeks, and for the first two weeks retail parks fared most favourably. Latterly, however, high streets appeared to have been the most resilient destination with last week's torrential rain across the UK hitting retail parks hardest, most probably due to the need to make potentially hazardous car journeys in adverse weather to reach them. The weather will have undoubtedly deterred shoppers from all destinations, and deferred the expected pay weekend uplift to this week."
Notes to editors
Footfall Measure
The BRC-Springboard Retail Footfall Monitor gathers data on customer activity in town and city centre locations, and in out of town shopping locations, throughout the UK using the latest generation automated technology. The Monitor records approximately 62 million footfall counts per week at over 500 different shopping locations in 152 towns and cities across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The Monitor covers the main centre in each nation/region and a representative sample of secondary and smaller town centres.
The Monitor provides the only available measures of the performance of town centre and out of town shopping locations in the UK.
*Figures in the Monitor are weighted by an estimate of footfall by channel (high streets, out of town and shopping centres).
Media Enquiries
Richard Dodd
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British Retail Consortium
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London SW1H 9BP
Tel: 020 7854 8924
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Richard Lim
Economist
British Retail Consortium
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London SW1H 9BP
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