(Alliance News) - There was a "significant" improvement in UK retail footfall in June, according to numbers posted on Monday, after the non-essential sector lifted shutters once again.
According to Springboard's footfall monitor, footfall fell 57% annually in June, faring better than May, which suffered a 73% slump.
Springboard Marketing & Insights Director Diane Wehrle noted this was a "significant improvement".
The UK lockdown eased during the month, allowing the non-essential retail sector to reopen in England on June 15.
Wehrle added: "The reopening of non-essential retail stores in England on June 15 was the turning point which led to footfall across all UK retail destinations increasing by 40% week-on-week. This catapulted the overall UK footfall result from an average annual decline of -67% in the first two weeks to -50% for the remainder of the month."
In high streets, footfall slumped 65% in June, shopping centres fared better, falling 62% and retail parks registered a 32% fall.
Food and homeware stores have aided retail parks from greater footfall drops, Springboard noted.
Wehrle said: "The pent-up anticipation to shop after more than three months of closure resulted in a huge spike in footfall in the week of re-opening, however footfall in the subsequent two weeks slowed considerably, from 6.6% in the first week after reopening to 2.4% in the second week. Long queues coupled with a restricted shopping experience due to social distancing could be the contributing factors to this sudden drop off in footfall. This is concerning for the economic recovery path of bricks and mortar retail who are heavily reliant on customer experience."
By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com
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