Christmas Day Update: Final Few Days Deliver Some Cheer To Retailers, Says Synovate

Monday 20th December was 32.1% busier than Sunday 19th; footfall on Tuesday 21st December was 4.5% up on Monday 20th; Wednesday 22nd was 3.0% busier than Tuesday 21st; and on Thursday 23rd shopper numbers were 9.0% higher than on Wednesday 22nd.

Christmas Eve was the usual exception, with traffic down 25.0% on Thursday 23rd, with many stores shutting early after shoppers headed home.

Over the course of the final three days before Christmas, Synovate's Retail Traffic Index (RTI) recorded a 13.3% week-on-week rise in the number of shoppers entering non-food stores (versus 15th ? 17th December) across the UK.

Against the same dates in 2009, footfall over 22nd ? 24th December was 6.1% down this year, an improvement on figures for earlier in the month.

Christmas Eve trading was brisk. The RTI was up by 2.6% week-on-week and down by just 2.0% on last year. In some parts of the country, including London and the East Midlands, Christmas Eve footfall was higher than last year. The best result was in Yorkshire and Humberside, where footfall was up by 7.3% on 2009's figure.

"These latest footfall figures show that the final run-in to Christmas Day has been pretty busy on the high street," comments Dr Tim Denison, Synovate's Director of Retail Intelligence.

"This news will be well received by retailers who have had a torrid time of things over the last month. I can't remember a more disrupted Christmas campaign. We thought it was going to be a 'slow burn' Christmastide, but it turned out to be a 'long freeze' instead, with the weather playing havoc to shoppers' plans and behaviour this year. The busiest Christmas shopping day turned out to be Saturday 11th December this year, much against our expectations. We had forecast that retail footfall for the month would be 4.2% lower than in 2009, but that was before the heavy snowfalls, so it?s likely to end up worse than that."

"This makes the final week of the year even more important to retailers than it otherwise would have been. They'll be looking to claw in as much business as possible on the back of the snow-interrupted month and before the anticipated dampening of demand at the start of 2011. We expect Boxing Day week to be the busiest of the year, with shoppers looking for pre-VAT increase bargains, mindful that the year ahead looks challenging and that the next opportunity to be so indulgent might be some way away."

Synovate will be issuing regular news releases over the start of the Sales. The next update is scheduled for 27th December.

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United kingdom - 25 December 2010