Shoppers dodge rain to buy online

SHOPPERS have stayed away from the struggling high street on what is usually expected to be the peak trading weekend before Christmas, figures show.

Footfall yesterday across UK high streets plummeted more than 9% compared with the same time last year, with bad weather and a continuing trend to shop online blamed for the disappointing numbers.

Overall footfall for shopping centres and retail parks, combined with high streets, was down 7.3% up to 3pm yesterday, retail intelligence experts Springboard said.

Diane Wehrle, its marketing and insights director, said Storm Deirdre’s arrival would do nothing to help people who are already choosing not to hit their local high street.

She said: “If people are presented with really terrible weather they then have the choice to shop online, and they can make other choices about what to do with their time.

“That unfortunately offers them sometimes better alternatives than trailing around a town centre or a high street in freezing cold or rainy weather.”

Ms Wehrle said while footfall appeared to have picked up for the early part of the week - with a yearon-year increase of 6.1% in high streets, shopping centres and retail parks – it was a false positive as snow last year meant figures were already low. She said yesterday’s figures were “severely down” on last year, on what she described as a “peak trading weekend”.