The number of UK buyers up 0.9% last week thanks to the weather

LONDON, July 19 (Reuters) – The number of buyers in Britain rose 0.9% in the week to July 17 from the previous week, boosted by the return of good weather, said Monday Researcher Springboard.

He said the overall increase in the number of shoppers, or footfall, was due to a 3.3% increase in buyer traffic at department stores, which more than offset the 0.8 declines. % and 2.2% in shopping parks and shopping centers respectively.

“There was a silver lining for the hospitality industry, as the biggest gains in footfall were made after 5 p.m. as shoppers took advantage of the warmer weather to take advantage of hospitality facilities,” said Diane Wehrle, director of ideas at Springboard.

Use of main streets after 5 p.m. increased 9.8% from the previous week against 1.9% until 5 p.m.

Springboard said overall UK attendance was down 24.9% from the same week in 2019, before the pandemic began to disrupt traffic.

The pandemic has hit UK retailers, already struggling with high rents and business taxes, tight margins and online competition. Hundreds of store closures and thousands of job cuts have been announced.

Springboard predicts that the number of buyers will increase by nearly a fifth this week from the previous week thanks to the lifting of most of the remaining COVID-19 restrictions in England on Monday. Read more

Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Kate Holton, William Maclean

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