As England enters second week of lockdown, the footfall continues to remain weak. However, analysts believe it is still much better than what it was during Lockdown 1 that started in March.
Substantiating on this, Springboard, a retail insights firm, says that the footfall across all UK retail destinations last week was 57.7 per cent lower than the same period last year – still better than Lockdown 1 in March when footfall fell by 75.1 per cent.
As far as high streets across the UK are concerned, the footfall slumped by 64.7 per cent year-over-year (Y-o-Y), compared to a fall of 79 per cent in the first week of Lockdown 1.
The footfall in shopping centres fell by 65.7 per cent last week compared to a fall of 79 per cent in the first week of March.
Similarly, the footfall in the retail park also dropped by 34.3 per cent last week compared to a massive plunge of 61 per cent during the first lockdown.
The better UK footfall numbers could be due to early Christmas shopping. However, one cannot overlook the fact that the 17-day fire lockdown is also now over in Wales.
Also, most of the places in Scotland and Northern Ireland remained open – though with restrictions – during the 2 weeks. Consequently, the numbers went up!
Springboard also said that between Thursday and Saturday (second week), the footfall across the UK rose by 10.1 per cent in high streets, while it jumped by 14.1 per cent in shopping centres.
In the retail parks, the surge was 18.7 per cent during the said period.
As the week progresses, people are coming out to shop and that’s why the 3 days of the second week, mentioned above, saw very good footfall.
