Christmas shopping decline on last year

The first full day of the post-Christmas sales saw a drop in shoppers compared with last year despite many centres reporting huge crowds, analysts said. The firm FootFall noted a 5.9% decrease in shopping visits to UK centres on Monday compared with December 27 last year. But these figures come as many major retail centre reported vast numbers of shoppers flocking through their FootFall marketing manager Natasha Burton said: "The year-on-year decrease for this first full day of sales when compared with the first full day of sales in 2003 is a little disappointing after early anecdotal evidence suggested that this could have been a recording breaking day.

"Unless they were serious bargain hunters, some potential shoppers may have been dissuaded from going to the shops fearing extra traffic and crowds, preferring to spend the time with their families, or enjoying the presents they had "Although shopper volumes are lower, final retail trading figures will reveal whether these sales day shoppers were seriously out to spend instead of just browsing," she concludes.

FootFall Limited measures more than 100 million shopper visits per month in more than 135 shopping centres covering more than 8,000 retail outlets. On Monday, many centres reported shopper numbers reaching almost record numbers.