Bank holiday sunshine boosts footfall

The hot and sunny weather over the Easter bank holiday has had a “hugely positive result” for the retail industry, according to figures from Springboard, which shows that footfall rose by 6.5 percent on Good Friday, up by 1.2 percent on Saturday and an increase of 8.4 percent by 12pm on Easter Monday.

On Friday and Saturday, all of the rise was due to an increase in activity on the high streets, added Springboard, where footfall rose by 19.1 percent on Good Friday and by 8.8 percent on Easter Saturday. This is in clear contrast to last year where footfall declined by 9.6 percent and 6.9 percent on Easter Friday and Saturday last year due to the weather.

However, the good weather didn't bring good news for retail parks and shopping centres on Friday and Saturday where footfall declined on both days. Footfall declined in shopping centres by 11 percent on Good Friday and by 11.8 percent on Easter Saturday. While in retail parks declined by 2.4 percent on Good Friday and by 1.3 percent on Easter Saturday from the same days last year.

Springboard Insights Director, Diane Wehrle said in a statement: “Consumers clearly wanted to be outside enjoying the sun rather than visiting covered malls.”

On Easter Sunday, with all major stores closed, it was only high streets that were able to trade and, even without the pulling power of large retailers, the opportunity for consumers to enjoy the weather led to a rise in footfall of 16.5 percent from Easter Sunday 2018 when footfall dropped by 1 percent up to 12pm and then rose marginally by 1.9 percent across the day as a whole.

With continuing good weather on Easter Monday, by 12pm retail footfall in the UK was up 8.4 percent higher than in 2018, with the high streets benefitting again, seeing a rise of 16.3 percent versus an increase of 1.9 percent in retail parks and a marginal drop of 1.4 percent in shopping centres.