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Jan 16, 2017
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UK shoppers walk back to the high street in December, but malls suffer

Published
Jan 16, 2017

High streets continued to be the biggest beneficiaries of consumers visiting physical stores in Britain during December, specialist tracking firm Springboard said. The first rise in footfall for five years showed that high streets certainly have something that malls and retail parks are missing.


UK consumers headed to the high street for their shopping in December



Unfortunately for the fashion sector though, it’s likely that ‘something’ wasn’t clothing or accessories. Consumers are increasingly being lured to high streets by their convenience store offer and their dining mix.

As well as stressing that rumours about the death of the high street have been greatly exaggerated, Springboard also said Monday that its latest figures showed clear shifts in the shopping season. Most notable was that Black Friday suppressed the importance of the later discount-focused key shopping days and that early December was relatively quiet (and could stay that way in future years).

So as high streets rose but the figures overall fell, it was clear that not everyone was a winner last month. Springboard said total footfall dropped 0.2% in December compared to a year earlier, the fourth consecutive monthly decline for the sector as a whole. But it was much better than the 2.2% drop that stores had seen a year ago. And it was also better than the three-month average of a 0.5% fall.

Of the three types of locations tracked, only the high street saw a rise in footfall in December, up 0.8% on the year. This is above the three-month average, which was broadly flat.

Footfall to retail parks fell by 0.7% year-on-year, worse than the three-month average of 0.1%. And shopping centres/malls fell for the 11th consecutive month to be down 1.9% year-on-year. That was only marginally better than the three-month average of a 2% fall, despite it being the month when UK shoppers should have been expected to hit the malls in huge numbers.

But the rise of online shopping appears to have put paid to the glory days when the mall was the place to be for fashion shoppers and to also have changed the shopping patterns of the holiday season.

Diane Wehrle, Springboard Insights Director said: “The final result… was more positive than the results for key trading days over Christmas led us to believe it would be.

"The month began just after Black Friday, which is now generating a similar level of in-store spend to Boxing Day, and so is clearly bringing forward shopping that in the past took place during December. This together with the fact that Christmas Day fell at the end of the fourth trading week meant that shoppers deferred purchases in order to snap up any additional discounts –demonstrated by the fact that footfall remained virtually flat until the third week of the month.

"Also evident is that the availability of discounts throughout December is subduing the significance of our traditional sale days of Boxing Day and New Year’s Day for bricks and mortar trips.

Of the increase in high street visits, she added: “The shift in consumer demand from focusing on the purchase of physical goods to encompass experiences has clearly benefitted the high street as it… has been able to transition quickly via an improved food and beverage offer, which has helped to bring in much needed footfall.”

Springboard has repeatedly urged mall owners to adjust their tenant mix away from pure product retail and to include more leisure/dining options that give consumers a strong reason to move away from their computer, tablet or smartphone screens.

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