UK retailers hit by drop in footfall as energy bills rise

theguardian.com:

The number of visitors to shopping destinations dropped back last week in one of the first indications of a slowdown in spending amid rising energy bills.

In the week beginning 2 October, footfall slipped by 0.2% on the previous week across all UK retail destinations, with the biggest drop in shopping centres and retail parks, according to figures from the monitoring group Springboard.

Diane Wehrle, the insights director at Springboard, said there had been a drop in almost all parts of the UK – in some areas by more than 2% – which she said “may well be an initial indicator” of the impact on consumers of higher energy costs that came into effect on 1 October.

“This is a clear contrast to the week before last, when footfall rose universally across all areas of the UK,” she said.

The week-on-week drop in footfall comes at a time of year when the number of people shopping is usually beginning to rise in the run-up to the peak Christmas spending period.

Retailers – including the bosses of Marks & Spencer, Next and Asda – have warned of a downturn in consumer spending this autumn and into next year as households struggle with higher energy and food bills.

Shoppers are expected to spend £4.4bn less – 20% down on last year – on non-essentials in the last three months of the year, when most retailers book the majority of profits, according to research by Retail Economics with the retail technology firm Metapack.

However, Wehrle noted that it could be too early to draw firm conclusions about behaviour because the worst drop in footfall was on Wednesday, when the weather was markedly worse than the previous week.

Visitor numbers remain up on last year, when the UK was enjoying a return to normality between the early summer pandemic