UK riots impact footfall but boost e-tail

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Aug 13, 2024

Riots last week led to a near-5% decline in high street footfall but a 2.5% jump in home deliveries that helped to make up for the dip.

The riots by far-right agitators last week reduced footfall by an average of 4.8% between Sunday and Wednesday on high streets specifically.

Admittedly, other destinations such as retail parks and shopping centres also saw declining visitor numbers but MRI Software said the overall drop across all destinations was just 2.7%.

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Wednesday was the worst day when footfall on high streets fell by 7.5%. In Northern England and Yorkshire, it was down by 12.9% compared to the previous week.

And now delivery specialist Parcelhero has said that parcel shipments and home deliveries jumped by at least 2.5% in the first half of last week. People chose to shop from the safety of their own homes and have items picked up rather than visit city centres.

Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks said: “As was the case during the Covid pandemic, when shoppers grow wary of crowds or potential trouble, they often opt to shop online instead. Based on Parcelhero’s own figures and anecdotal information from our partner courier organisations and retailers, there was a marked uptick in online orders in the first half of last week when, usually, town centre stores would have been teeming with families on holiday.

“This week, it seems that the impact of swift sentencing and rapid response policing has calmed the situation and consumer patterns seem to have returned to normal.

“As well as supermarkets and shoe shops, what was particularly concerning was the number of attacks on corner shops and community pharmacies. More than half of the UK’s pharmacy teams are reported to have felt unsafe because of the unrest. That’s entirely unacceptable.

“The number of summer shoppers should have soared last week as schools were out and family day trips should have been in full swing. Now, however, it’s likely that last week’s high street sales figures will be notably down on the same period last year, as well as down week-on-week.”