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Footfall makes a slow recovery in July as shops begin to reopen

Source: Mintel 07-08-2020

Footfall across all shopping destinations remains well down on pre-COVID-19 levels, despite an improvement since the reopening of pubs, cafes and restaurants to lure customers to the high street. According to the latest BRC-ShopperTrak Footfall Monitor, footfall fell by 42.1% for the four weeks from 5 July to 1 August, compared to June’s drop of 62.6%.

Footfall on high streets slumped 47.5% year on year in July 2020, which is an improvement on June’s 64.5%. Shopping centres saw footfall drop by 48.1% year on year in July, compared to June’s 68.3%. Retail parks suffered the least, footfall declined by 22.4% year on year, compared to June’s 33.8%.

“An expected but positive set of figures for the retail sector. Of course the headline 42.1% decline year-on-year is still unprecedented but the fact footfall was up by a fifth compared to June, shows a positive trend that consumers are slowly being encouraged back to stores.

This is not to say there is not still caution, some 43% of consumers are trying to limit their time in-store, and the detailed breakdown bears this out. Retail parks are once again proving far more popular, as we expected in Mintel’s The Impact of COVID-19 on Retail and E-commerce – UK, June 2020, with the greater space providing more chance for social distancing and more confidence for shoppers. Conversely shopping centres performed worse, with the enclosed spaces proving challenging.

There is a notable comment from the BRC that the opening of pubs and restaurants had little material impact on footfall. Like retail in June, July was the first month where such locations were open and naturally there will be a slow build in consumer confidence to return to such locations. The ‘inside’ nature of the majority of such locations combined with naturally longer dwell times will also be giving customers pause – indeed Mintel’s latest tracker (23-30 July) data shows that 52% of consumers say they would feel uncomfortable going to a restaurant/bar indoors, compared to 37% for outdoor restaurants/bars.

This is a number that has edged down from 58% at the start of the month (25 June – 1 July), and the hope would be that the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out campaign further improves this in August – as this will not only be a positive for that sector and the economy, but surrounding retail as well.”

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