{"id":683782,"date":"2026-01-09T05:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/683782\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T05:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:08:12","slug":"retailers-suffer-disappointing-december-amid-cost-of-living-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/683782\/","title":{"rendered":"Retailers suffer disappointing December amid cost-of-living woes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Total UK footfall was down 2.9% over the month year on year, according to data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Sensormatic.<\/p>\n<p>Visits to the high street were down by 0.9%, but retail park footfall fell 2.5% and shopping centres suffered particularly badly with 5.1% fewer Christmas customers on the year before.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/9d4b23d3-1cb7-489b-a3cc-691b070865c3.png\" alt=\"\"  \/>Source: BRC<\/p>\n<p>Overall, total UK footfall over the year was down 0.8% compared with 2024, while \u201cGolden Quarter\u201d visitors over the three months to December fell by 2.2%.<\/p>\n<p>Footfall decreased year-on-year across all nations \u2013 down 1.5% in Scotland, 1.7% in Northern Ireland, with the largest decrease of 3.1% in both England and Wales.<\/p>\n<p>BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said: \u201cIt was a disappointing December for retailers as footfall declined across all shopping locations, as well as in the major cities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the face of rising bills and food costs, many consumers held off for post-Christmas sales, with the week after Christmas the only one to see a significant uplift.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShoppers were also browsing less in the lead up to Christmas, making fewer, but more targeted shopping trips, particularly in shopping centres, which saw the largest drop in footfall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast month\u2019s figures capped a challenging year, with total shopper traffic down in 2025. This marks the third consecutive year of annual footfall decline, reflecting the continuing evolution in shopping habits and the retail landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andy Sumpter, from Sensormatic, said: \u201cShopper traffic rallied outside traditional peak days, showing festive buying patterns are changing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd while UK footfall fell year on year, it was the second strongest among G7 markets in December \u2013 a sign of resilience in a tough trading climate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Total UK footfall was down 2.9% over the month year on year, according to data from the British&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-683782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115863414793503168","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}