Easter provided ‘flicker of hope’ for retailers, says industry body

Retailers received a “flicker of hope” with the best shopping traffic since November, an industry body has said.

While shopper footfall fell in March for the sixth consecutive month, the decrease was just 9% year-on-year (YoY), compared to a 3.2% fall in February.

The March rate is better than the UK’s average decrease of 1.3%, data from the SRC-Sensormatic IQ shows.

Experts at the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) said it is likely the combination of Easter and school holidays “buoyed” foot traffic.

But retailers were warned the “choppy nature” of footfall recovery shows consumer confidence is yet to fully turn a corner.

The figures show improvements for Edinburgh, with footfall increasing 2.9% year-on-year, while Glasgow decreased by 1.8% – which was its best performance since July.

Shopping centre footfall generally decreased by 0.9% last month, 0.1 percentage points better than February.

David Lonsdale, director of the SRC, said: “Visits to Scotland’s retail destinations fell for a sixth successive month in March, however this decline was small and overall was the least-worst monthly footfall figure witnessed since November.

“The early Easter and school holidays buoyed foot traffic, providing a flicker of hope for Scottish stores as spring approaches.

“The improvement was felt across all retail destinations. Glasgow had its best performance since last July and Edinburgh recorded a solid month of footfall growth.

“Shopper footfall and the health of our broader economy is highly dependent on what happens to consumer spending. The continued growth in real wages and easing shop price inflation should help support demand, as should the council tax freeze and cuts in employee national insurance contributions.

“However, whether this translates into a greater propensity to spend in stores remains to be seen.

“At the same time, retailers themselves have to balance this against their own outgoings, which continue to spiral notably with the above inflation hike in property taxes.”

Andy Sumpter, retail consultant for Sensormatic Solutions, said: “An early, high-performing Easter helped put a spring in shoppers’ steps and this, combined with a boost from Mother’s Day and ambient store visits from school holidays, drove up shopper traffic numbers in March to improve on what was a rather muted footfall performance in February.

“While retailers will have welcomed the seasonal uplift in store visits last month, the choppy nature of footfall recovery we’ve seen over the past few months indicates that consumer confidence is yet to fully turn a corner, meaning we may see a bumpy recovery in shopper traffic in the months ahead.”