The FINANCIAL — UNITED KINGDOM. For the fifth consecutive month, March recorded lower retail footfall in the UK compared to the same month of the previous year, according to Synovate Retail Performance.
The Retail Traffic Index (RTI), the national measure of the shopper numbers entering non-food outlets, dropped 1.9% in March against the same month in 2009, slightly more than in February (-1.3%). Month-on-month the RTI rose by 3.6% against February's figures.
Synovate Director of Retail Intelligence, Tim Denison, comments: "A year-on-year fall in footfall is never welcome news to retailers, but the March figures indicate that shoppers are showing some signs of emerging from their deep recessionary hibernation. Granted, it is more of a tiptoe than a confident march forward, but some heart can be taken from the uplift on February, above the seasonal average. We need to be mindful of the timing of Easter though, which always makes it difficult to draw strong conclusions about any underlying trend at this time of the year."
The last week of the month (w/c 28th March) which marked the first of the Easter holiday fortnight, registered a 1.7% rise in the number of shoppers entering non-food stores in the UK against the same calendar week in 2009. However, against the first week of Easter 2009 (w/c 5th April), a week later than this year, the footfall comparison is far less flattering. Shopper numbers were 8.5% lower than last year.
"Poor weather across the country did retailers no favours over the first week of the Easter period," continues Denison, "but we should await the outcome of the second week before making any assessment about the level of shopping activity over Easter as a whole.
Shoppers are caught in aspic at the moment. They are unwilling to break out of their subdued behaviour until they know the outcome and policy consequences of the General Election. People are generally aware that tough decisions and actions are ahead for the country, but they don't yet know whether this will impact them this year or next, or how it will affect their individual situations. In the meantime, retailers are tasked with doing what they can to nurture household spending, but there's only so much that can be done with little inherent appetite."
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