Shoppers in control as last days of Christmas retail come to a close

ENGLAND, UK: With only two days of shopping left before Christmas Day, retail footfall has now peaked. The week commencing 15th December, the last full trading week before Christmas, proved to be the busiest of the year, as anticipated.

The Retail Traffic Index, supplied by Ipsos Retail Performance, showed footfall climb by 12.4 percent against the previous week. Saturday 21st is confirmed as the busiest day of the whole festive period. Footfall was up that day by 3.7 percent on the previous Saturday and by 8 percent on Saturday 7th December, and by 21.9 percent on Friday 20th. For food stores, though, footfall is expected to peak today, Monday 23rd.

Last week was not, however, as busy as the final full week of trading in the run-in to Christmas last year. Compared to the week commencing 16th December 2012, the week commencing 15th December 2013 was 3 percent quieter.

"Shoppers' behaviour this Christmas has tracked very closely to our expectations," explains Dr Tim Denison, director of Retail Intelligence at Ipsos Retail Performance. "Our data show that Christmas 2013 got off to a flying start, with shoppers eager to do some early gift buying, to take some of the strain out of Christmas at the end of a difficult year.

"Since then, while traffic has grown healthily week-on-week, there has not been the same clear water gap versus 2012. Shopper numbers are still stronger than December 2012 by 0.2 percent, but the margin is narrowing. We had expected the last weekend to have been busier than last year, particularly in light of the special events some retailers had launched, but it transpired to be 9.8 percent quieter.

"Only 27 percent of non-food stores recording year-on-year growth. Some had dubbed it ‘panic Saturday', but I sense that shoppers felt well under control over the weekend. With one extra day's trading before Christmas this year, some may have decided to keep their final trip to the shops until the start of this week instead, believing that prices are set to fall further."

Around the regions the footfall picture is varied. The strongest improvement on last year's shopper numbers is in Scotland and Northern Ireland, whereas London and The South East stands bottom of the league with many of the capital's workers packing up early and retreating elsewhere.