Industry analyst Springboard has said that Boxing Day shopping footfall was up by almost 39% despite the cost of living crisis and the RMT rail strikes.
Compared with the same period in 2021 Springboard’s data showed footfall on the UK’s high streets was up by 38.8%.
High streets were up by 44.1% across shopping centres, and retail parks were 25.9%, so the data shows that all three destination types were up compared to the same period last year.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said, it is most likely there was a rise in sales, as Boxing Day 2021 fell on a Sunday rather than on a weekday.
She added, “Over the 24 hours of Boxing Day footfall was up from 2021 by about 39%.
“So a slightly smaller increase than the period up to 12pm, but it was in line with our expectations.
“We did expect the uplift to turn off slightly towards the end of the day. That is exactly what happened.
“It demonstrates that the morning of Boxing Day this year was much busier than the morning of Boxing Day last year.”
Wehrle said that train strikes did have an effect on footfall for this period, adding, that “Inevitably there will have been an effect. I think we can see that quite clearly in the gap in footfall between 2022 and 2019.
“Prior to the train strikes there was an ongoing gap of around 12% in footfall between 2019 and 2022.
“The minute the trains strikes hit, that gap widened to 20%, and we are still at around that level, which is a big gap, and a very sudden gap.”
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