Retailers are looking for a much needed post-Christmas boost as new figures indicated shopper numbers were up on 2012.
Boxing Day was 1.1% busier than last year, while shopper numbers on 27 December were up 17.3% year on year, according to Ipsos Retail Performance.
“We are still predicting that footfall this December will be 0.6% higher than last December, which would be the first positive footfall on the high street for a year and sends a telling message that shoppers are starting to feel more confident,” Tim Denison, director of retail intelligence at Ipsos Retail Performance, told The Observer.
However, data from Springboard suggested the high street had lost out to retail parks in the post-Christmas rush. Footfall to UK high streets on Boxing Day decreased by 9% year on year, but increased to retail parks and shopping centres by 10%, Springboard said.
“The footfall shows that people have headed out early,” said Diane Wehrle, marketing and Insights director at Springboard. “The initial spike in footfall is representative of that – but people on the high street may have headed home after getting what they wanted. The fact that shopping centres and retail parks are still up reflects the less onerous parking tariff that often deters shoppers from town centres.”
Online shopping record
Boxing Day 2013 was the biggest and busiest day ever for online retailers in the UK, according to Experian Hitwise, which reported that British shoppers made 129 million visits to retail websites on 26 December, a 15% year-on-year increase.
There were 90 million online retail visits on Christmas Eve 2013 (up 6% year on year) and 114 million visits on Christmas Day (also up 6%).
“Online retail records have been broken again for the fourth time this December with an astonishing Boxing Day performance,” said James Murray, digital insight manager for Experian Marketing Services. “ The figure of 129 million retail visits is 8% bigger than any other online retail day in history.”
Elsewhere, John Lewis reported that 75% of its online traffic on Christmas Day was from mobile and tablet devices, making 2013 its first “mobile Christmas”.
Meanwhile, competition is expected to be particularly fierce in the grocery sector, with some retailers such as M&S and Sainsbury’s launching sales on Christmas Eve.
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