Retailers boosted by 14.2 per cent Easter footfall surge

High streets saw a surge in the footfall over the Easter weekend, shows recent reports.

According to retail experts MRI Springboard, over the seven days last week from Sunday to Easter Saturday, footfall was +14.2 per cent higher than the week before which was the largest week on week increase since the week leading up to Christmas 2022. In high streets it was even greater at +17 per cent, with a rise of +13.8 per cent in shopping centres and +8.8 per cent in retail parks.

Good Friday exceeded all expectations with an increase in footfall from the week before of +17.5 per cent. The rise in footfall in high streets on that day was even greater at +26.8 per cent although footfall also rose on Good Friday from the week in shopping centres (+8.1 per cent) and retail parks (+7.4 per cen).

Easter Saturday was largely flat on the previous week with a rise across all UK retail destinations of just +0.2 per cent, mainly due to drops in footfall in retail parks and shopping centres of -2.3 per cent and -5.6 per cent. In high streets activity continued to increase by +4.2 per cent from the week before.

This meant that over the three trading days of Easter (Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Monday ) footfall was +2.1 per cent higher than the week before, with all of the increase derived from high streets and retail parks. Over the three trading days footfall in high streets was +4.8 per cent higher than the previous week and +3.9 per cent higher in retail parks, whilst in shopping centres it was -4 per cent lower.

Footfall last week (Sunday to Saturday) was +15.6 per cent higher than in the same week in 2022, however, this is not a comparison with the week of Easter in 2022 as it fell a week later last year. Comparing last week with the Easter week in 2022 the uplift was more modest (+6.2 per cent). Likewise, last week there was a gap of -7.2 per cent from the same week in 2019, however Easter occurred two weeks later in 2019 and the gap last week from the week of Easter in 2019 was slightly larger at -10.2 per cent.

Diane Wehrle, Insights Director at MRI Springboard: “Easter this year was pre-empted by strong footfall performance every day during the week in the run up to Easter, and then the weekend itself was undoubtedly helped by the warm and sunny weather.

Inevitably on Easter Sunday footfall was far below the previous week’s level (-39.4 per cent) as stores were closed, and this impacted shopping centres and retail parks most (-66.5 per cent and -56.7 per cent). The drop in footfall in high streets on Easter Sunday from the week before was more modest at -18 per cent and is likely to have been supported by restaurants and bars, many of which remained open. On Easter Monday, with rain and cooler weather, footfall dipped and was -17 per cent lower than the week before across all UK retail destinations and -27.9 per cent lower in high streets.

On Good Friday, the greatest increase in footfall of +61.4 per cent occurred in coastal towns followed by historic towns (+42 per cent). On Easter Saturday the rises in footfall across the range of town types were far more modest apart from in coastal towns where footfall was +38.8 per cent higher than the week before. Even on Easter Sunday, footfall in coastal towns was +3.2 per cent higher than the week before, whilst in all other types of towns footfall declined noticeably. The cooler temperatures and rain on Monday meant that footfall in all key town types was much lower than the week before.

Across the week as a whole, footfall rose across all parts of the UK, with the greatest week on week increases in the East (+15.9 per cent), the South West (+17.3 per cent) and Wales (+18 per cent), all of which have extensive coastlines and a strong representation of coastal towns.

Over the three trading days of Easter, footfall was +3.7 per cent higher than over Easter in 2022. Despite the rise in high street footfall from the week before, the gain from 2022 in high streets was just +0.7 per cent whilst in retail parks and shopping centres the uplift from Easter 2022 was much greater at +6 per cent and +7.8 per cent respectively.

Footfall over Easter remained -10.8 per cent lower than over Easter in 2019 across all retail destinations, however, there were differences in the degree of recovery to pre-pandemic levels across the three key destination types. Footfall in retail parks bounced back to the 2019 level (+0.05 per cent from 2019) supported by strong trading on Good Friday and Easter Monday. In high streets, however, despite a week on week rise of +4.8per cent over the weekend there remained a gap of -16 per cent from 2019, and in shopping centres the gap from 2019 was -9.8 per cent.”