05/01/2009 Xmas week non-food shopping trips up 3.2%

Retail traffic data from Synovate Retail Performance has revealed that between 21-27 December 2008 the amount of non-food shopping trips made in the UK were up 3.2% on 2007.

According to Synovate, this represents the first increase on last year in nine weeks (since w/c 26 Oct).

Additionally, Synovate reported that Scotland and Northern Ireland had a 4.9% increase in retail traffic compared to the same week last year.

Synovate retail psychologist Dr Tim Denison said: "After an extremely lacklustre mid-month period, Christmas week finally produced the last minute rush of shoppers that retailers had hoped for, but not all had expected. It was the final six days before Christmas, when shopper numbers were overall 2.2% higher than last year, which made all the difference. Shoppers, holding back for throw-away prices, finally realised that it simply wasn't going to happen that side of Christmas, so they went present-hunting at the last minute. Just as we had anticipated, the pre-Christmas surge that we had detected did, indeed, carry through to the first few days of the Sales."

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