The company’s Performance Retail Traffic Index (RTI), which monitors the volume of shoppers in non-food stores across the UK, recorded a narrowing gap between this year and last.
In August 2012, year-on-year figures were only 1.1% down for the country as a whole, much the best comparison of the year and far healthier than the 5.1% year-to-date deficit. Figures for August against July showed a slight decline of -0.8%.
There were mixed opinions on the expected impact of the London 2012 Olympic Games on retail sales and footfall, with concerns that the disruption to normal living and working patterns would keep shoppers away and that regular summer day-trippers wouldn’t venture into the capital during the Games.
There was also the belief that while tourist figures would be similar to any other summer, their interests in shopping would be substantially less. In contrast, others felt that the Games presented a great shop window for London retailers, in particular to expose their goods to a new audience and reap some reward.
In the event, retail traffic in London and the southeast, where most of the Olympic action took place, was more subdued than the national average. There, numbers over the month were 2.3% down on August 2011 and 4.6% down on July.
Any year-on-year comparison with August 2011 is further complicated by the summer riots of 2011 that began in London and rapidly spread to other retail hubs such as Manchester and Birmingham.
Attention is now focused on September and the results of the back-to-school campaigns. A steady September would secure an improved quarter for retail footfall and help counter the pessimism in the CBI’s latest survey for Q3, which reported the weakest outlook since February 2009.
Source: Ipsos Retail Performance
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