Changing shopping habits continue to drive down footfall, says BRC

Footfall in November was down 2.4% on the same time last year, down on the 0.8% fall in October and below the three-month average of a 1.4% decline. 

This is according to the latest BRC Springboard Footfall Monitor, in which footfall on high streets was down 4% compared to last year, while footfall in shopping centres decreased by 2.1% on November 2013.

Out-of-town retailers reported the only rise in footfall, 0.8% higher than a year ago. Out-of-town has experienced positive footfall growth for every month to date in 2014.

All regions and countries with the exception of the West Midlands, (1.5%), East (2.2%) and Scotland (0.9%) reported declining footfall.

Helen Dickinson, BRC director general, said: “Today’s figures suggest that people are buying more non-food items per shopping trip; likely due to them having researched their potential purchases online or having chosen to ‘click-and-collect’. Shopper numbers were down 4.0 per cent on High Streets across the UK continuing the trend that has seen footfall declining in all but one month in 2014.

“The only shopping destinations seeing positive growth were out-of-town and even then shopper numbers increased by less than one per cent.”