Black Friday footfall down as shoppers turn to online

E-commerce stole the show over the Black Friday weekend as retail footfall fell unexpectedly across the UK, according to retail footfall analyst firm Springboard.

Footfall across retail destinations in the UK for the weekend as a whole was down 9.6% compared with the same period last year, as shoppers increasingly chose to take advantage of retailers’ flash sales online rather than visiting stores.

Data company PCA Predict recorded online traffic was up 12% compared with the same weekend in 2014.

Many retailers continued their offers over the full weekend in hopes to boost the surge across all three days. However, Springboard figures revealed the drop in footfall was deeper on Saturday and Sunday, dropping 6.8% each day. Black Friday itself dropped 4.5%.

The only retail destinations to report positive growth were retail parks, which recorded a 4.9% year-on-year increase for the weekend as a whole. Footfall in retail parks on Black Friday itself were down 1.8%, but Saturday and Sunday saw increases of 4.8%.

Springboard said this was likely a result of shoppers who bought online using ‘Click and Collect’ on Friday coming out to pick up their purchases at the weekend.

Diane Wehrle, marketing and insights director at Springboard, said: “The volume of activity in retail stores over the Friday and Saturday of the Black Friday weekend is lower than last year and the evidence clearly points to the fact that much of this is due to a significant increase in shoppers using online to participate in the event.”

Despite this, there was still a surge in shoppers into retail destination when compared with the same days in the previous week.

Friday saw a rise in shoppers of 19.9% from the previous Friday, saturday was up 7.4% while the number of shoppers visiting up until 12pm on Sunday increased by 27.1%.