Retail footfall suffers badly over easter fortnight
2 April 2008
UNITED KINGDOM — Figures from the Retail Traffic Index (RTI) by analysts Synovate Retail Performance, now part of global research company Synovate, show a significant 9.2% drop in footfall for the entire holiday fortnight against the Easter break last year, worse even than the fall of 5.2% forecast by Synovate Retail Performance. Even against the same calendar weeks of 2007, the boost from Easter was disappointingly small; shopper numbers were up by only 4.7%.
Synovate Retail Performance's retail psychologist, Dr Tim Denison explains; "All the cards in the pack have fallen against retail this Easter, making it the quietest one this decade. The combination of poor weather, a very early Easter and shortened school breaks over the traditional holiday fortnight; on top of the growing underlying financial pressures on the consumer; put paid to any hope of buoyant Easter trading this year. Taking the two weeks as a whole, it was even quieter than we had predicted.
There were occasional days of lift, such as Good Friday, where shopper numbers generally were 4.1% higher than last year, but shopper numbers visiting the usual Easter winners; namely DIY and Garden centres, were actually well down against Good Friday last year; by 12.7%. The small uplift in general trading was more a matter of people deciding to shop early in the weekend rather than later, when the weather forecasts predicted more inclement conditions. I believe there will also be some more busy days to come over the next couple of weeks, on the back of residual school holidays, but these may well be outliers to the overall trend.
"Conditions remain very tricky. Retailers are constantly monitoring their sales and footfall figures to decide whether or not to stimulate trade with short-term price-cutting. Some have already chosen to go down that route, while others have elected to run clearance campaigns to offload seasonal stock. I have little doubt that this will be the busiest period for many a year for retail marketers and merchandisers, as they respond to increasing head office pressures to build turnover."
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 6,000 employees across 62 countries.
For more information on Synovate visit www.synovate.com.