​Football fever failed to score with shoppers last week - Springboard

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jul 12, 2021

Football may have gripped the nation last week, but footfall in UK retail destinations mostly snoozed for the seven days spanning 4-10 July. It was up just 0.6% last week following a flat result the week before, reported Springboard on Monday.

There were only small gains in retail parks and shopping centres of 1.4% and 1.3% week-on-week, and there was no increase at all across the country’s high streets. 

Between Sunday and Tuesday, footfall rose by an average of just 0.9%. However, retail parks visits rose by 7.2% on Tuesday, possibly a result of shoppers stocking up at food stores in advance of England’s Euro 2020 semi-final match on Wednesday.

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Saturday was by far the strongest day of the week, with footfall 6.1% higher than the week before across all retail destinations, and increases of a similar magnitude in all three destination types (+6.9% in high streets, +5.4% in shopping centres and +5.1% in retail parks). 

On Sunday, the day of the Euros final, it was only high streets that benefited with a rise in footfall of 9.7% from the week before — probably supported by fans visiting pubs to watch the match. By contrast, retail parks and shopping centres saw footfall declines of 4% and 4.9% respectively. 

Despite there being no overall rise in footfall across high streets generally, activity in both Central London and coastal towns increased, with rises of 3.6% and 2.6%. 

At leat the still-wide gap compared to 2019 did narrow slightly to -25.8% last week from -28.1% the week before, with footfall in retail parks just -4.4% below the 2019 level. On Saturday, the 5.1% rise in footfall in retail parks pushed it above the 2019 level by +2.4%.