'Muted' Christmas predicted for high street as footfall drops
The high street could be set to suffer a "muted" Christmas according to the latest figures, which show footfall is down 2.6% on this time last year.
With less than a fortnight until Christmas, the expected increase in shoppers taking advantage of extended Black Friday promotions has yet to materialise, according to the Ipsos Retail Performance Retail Traffic Index.%VIRTUAL-ArticleSidebar-Christmas%
The figures, based on the number of individual shoppers entering more than 4,000 non-food stores across the UK, suggests that December's footfall will be down 0.9% on last year, rather than the 1.3% improvement originally forecast.
The only region that saw year-on-year growth was Wales and South West England, where footfall was 4.1% higher than in 2014.
Dr Tim Denison, director of retail intelligence at Ipsos Retail Performance, said: "With less than a fortnight to go until Christmas, it is beginning to look as if store footfall will be lower than last year.
"Time will tell whether the slack has been taken up by online and mobile, or whether shopping per se is more subdued this year than last.
"Unless there is a substantial last-minute rush to the shops, we now project a drop of 0.9% on 2014."
