March Piles more gloom on the high streets
9 4月 2008
UNITED KINGDOM — Figures from the Retail Traffic Index (RTI) by analysts Synovate Retail Performance, now part of global research company Synovate, show that the month of March follows the downbeat results from the Easter fortnight. Monthly footfall numbers (people actually entering shops) in the UK were down by 3.2% year-on-year and up by only 0.8% on February's figures.
Synovate Retail Performance's retail psychologist, Dr Tim Denison said; "We all knew what was coming, I suspect. All the tell-tale signs were in place ? an early Easter; a disrupted school break and nervousness about rising inflation, the general economy and personal wealth circumstances. The coup de grace was the blizzards and unsettled weather which simply piled misery upon misery for retailers last month. In January and February there were at least people out there in the shops, tracking down the best deals, but even this trend has fallen away in March. The dampers on shopping now seem firmly in place.
"I suppose the most positive point from the statistics is that if we take Quarter 1 as a whole, retail traffic was only marginally down on 2007; by 0.4%. I, for one, had fully expected the quarter to be far quieter than that. We do continue to see surprisingly high levels of inertia in shopping behaviour, despite all the negative pressures. Plainly old habits die hard.
"However, every day the pinch on the consumer is reportedly more painful and less easy for them to ignore. This will be working its way through to the retailer, where the priority should probably be more about driving cash efficiencies, making every pound generated through the tills deliver that bit more before leaving the business, than purely conserving cash by aborting investment programmes. Suppliers and manufacturers can expect even tougher trading conditions to come. April will be an unsettling month all round with Easter behind us now and the summer still a long way off."
All enquiries for follow up or interviews with Dr Tim Denison should be directed to Theo Chalmers at Verve PR on 01908 275271 (weekdays) or 07932 004632.
Contact(s) for this press release
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Tim Denison
Synovate Retail Performance |
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34 Walker Avenue |
Tel. +44 (0) 1908 682 700 |
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Theo Chalmers
Managing Director, Verve Public Relations |
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Park House, 8 Grove Ash |
Tel. +44 1908 275 271 |
Synovate Retail Performance provides footfall monitoring solutions, shopper tracking systems and in-store behavioural research to retailers worldwide. Its core products – Shopper Count, Shopper Interact and Shopper Engage – scientifically measure all aspects of a shopper experience from store entry to exit. Originally founded as Solution Products Systems Ltd (SPSL) in the UK in 1998, it was acquired by Synovate in December 2007 and now offers unrivalled global reach and scalability through Synovate's network of in-country teams and three specialist hubs based in Europe, North America and the Far East.
It supplies national and international retailers with essential business metrics to drive accountability and performance improvement. Synovate Retail Performance harnesses powerful retail and shopper intelligence and creates real deployable insight, to deliver its mantra of "Measure, Manage, Improve" to clients.
Synovate Retail Performance is home to the Retail Traffic Index series, which for over 10 years has been the industry's leading tracker of national, regional and sector retail footfall trends. It is also co-founder of the KPMG / Synovate Retail Think Tank, offering thought leadership on the state of retail health and the future of retailing. Synovate Retail Performance is part of Synovate Customer Experience, Synovate's global business practice specialising in the profitable management of the total sum of all customer interactions.
For more information on Synovate Retail Performance click here.
About Synovate
Synovate, the market research arm of Aegis Group plc, generates consumer insights that drive competitive marketing solutions. The network provides clients with cohesive global support and a comprehensive suite of research solutions. Synovate employs over 6,400 staff across 62 countries.
For more information on Synovate visit www.synovate.com.