Springboard detects further fall in footfall
It would seem that the anticipation of Black Friday deals impacted footfall last week as results fell-2.3% across the Springboard Index. That said, footfall improved +5.3% against the previous week, a likely rebound from the -6.9% of the previous week, but also an indication of consumers ‘showrooming’ in advance of online Black Friday savings.
The drop in the annual change, of which the +0.1% to retail parks was not enough to subvert, ends a steady improvement in the yearly change for the week since Black Friday loomed larger in the UK retail calendar in 2015, which had seen a change from -2.8% in 2015 and -1.0% in 2016 to +0.5% in 2017. This had been attributed to a spreading of Black Friday deals over longer period encouraging consumers to start Christmas shopping in earnest, however with spending reduced as whole, consumers seem to be savvier in researching both online and offline the best deals for the items that they really want prior to purchase.
The results for all location types followed the same pattern; as all experienced the upward swing against the previous week, ranging from +4.7% for Shopping Centres, +4.8% to retail parks and +5.9% to high streets, the annual result (for shopping centres and high streets) swung downwards, falling -3.3% and -3.0% respectively. And, this polarisation of yearly and weekly change was, with few exceptions in retail park regions, blanketed across the country.
