Bank holiday brings good cheer

The post-Christmas sales and a bank holiday weekend brought shoppers out in droves, boosting sales after a quiet week. Retail information provider Footfall reported a 6.6 percent rise in shoppers over the weekend, compared with the same period last year. During the week after Christmas the figures had dropped 12.4 percent, so the weekend brought a welcome reprieve for retailers.

"We witnessed a rush back to the high street from Boxing day onwards, with consumers eager to snap up more bargains," Natasha Burton, marketing manager at Footfall told the FT. "For the first tow days of the sales we recorded a rise of 8 percent in shopper numbers compared with last year. However, the second half of the week struggled to maintain the momentum, with many people returning to work by Wednesday."