UK Boxing Day retail footfall dips amidst pre-Christmas discounting and rail strikes

UK Boxing Day (26th December) retail footfall dropped -23.6% year-on-year, as extensive pre-Christmas discounting dulled shopper motivation to hit in-store sales and the ongoing rail strikes continued to cause disruption.

That’s according to Sensormatic’s footfall index, which captures 40 billion shopper visits globally each year.

Andy Sumpter, EMEA Retail Consultant at Sensormatic, comments: “With UK retailers offering extended periods of discounting pre-Christmas, with many competing on discounting and promotions in a bid to lure the lucrative Christmas trade, we saw shoppers head out in force to bag bargains before Christmas, rather than choosing to brave the Boxing Day sales.”

Before Christmas, the high street saw surges of festive footfall in the lead up to Christmas day, with shopper traffic on Super Saturday (17th December) jumping to +15% year-on-year and 7% week-on-week. 

Meanwhile, Frenzied Friday (23rd December) saw a significant boost to shopper counts, as people sought to wrap up Christmas gift shopping before the aforementioned rail strikes kicked in on Christmas Eve. 

This prompted total UK retail footfall to rise +51.3% year-on-year on that day.

While industrial action across the rail networks may have contributed to an overall Boxing Day dip in UK retail footfall, several cities defied the disruption with London, Glasgow and Birmingham seeing upticks in year-on-year shopper traffic.

London footfall rose 11.1% and Glasgow and Birmingham enjoyed upticks of 9.5% and 7.9% respectively.