{"id":9300,"date":"2025-04-10T23:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T23:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/9300\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T23:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T23:38:09","slug":"shopper-numbers-plummet-in-march-amid-fresh-economic-uncertainty-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/9300\/","title":{"rendered":"Shopper numbers plummet in March amid fresh economic uncertainty \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Footfall in towns, cities and shopping centres in Northern Ireland plunged in February as shopper and business confidence plummets amid ongoing economic uncertainty, allied to jitters around the recent UK government spring statement.<\/p>\n

Latest industry figures covering the five weeks from March 2 to April 5 reveal that overall footfall in the north was down 9% over that period, making it the second-worst performing region in the UK behind the south west of England (down 9.8%).<\/p>\n

In Belfast the decline was more marked at minus-10.4%, while in shopping centres the drop was 9.6%.<\/p>\n

The monthly footfall figures, with compiled by the NI Retail Consortium and Sensormatic, are calculated using precise shopper numbers entering retail stores across the UK, whichever destination they are located.<\/p>\n

\"Price<\/a>\"Receivers<\/a><\/p>\n

While high streets, shopping centres and retail parks are the main components of the total footfall numbers, there are also additional categories not included as separate indices. These include outlets, travel hub locations, and free-standing locations such as garden centres.<\/p>\n

\"TheNI Retail Consortium director Neil Johnston <\/p>\n

Neil Johnston, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, said: \u201cThe footfall figures have been very volatile in recent months, which we think reflects low consumer confidence due to economic uncertainty. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut hopefully the continuing good weather and the Easter period will bring out the shoppers over the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe decrease in footfall figures in March compared to last year is partly due to the fact Easter was much earlier last year, so we hope the figures will improve in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t explain why the Northern Ireland figures were among the worst in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Johnston said the numbers highlighted the challenging circumstances the retail industry are facing.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet retailers, and indeed all businesses, are facing higher costs from rises in wage costs, business rates, and national insurance policies from the start of April.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time the Executive outlined a plan to decrease business rates for the retail, hospitality and leisure sector.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Footfall in towns, cities and shopping centres in Northern Ireland plunged in February as shopper and business confidence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[6330,1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-9300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-footfall","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114316306220224650","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9300","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=9300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}