Retail Recovery Index With non-essential retail allowed to re-open across England from 12 April, the Retail Recovery Index tracks the cities enjoying the best retail recovery as lockdown restrictions gradually ease across the country. The Retail Recovery Index data is constructed from the number of shoppers entering stores using a nationally representative sample of over 4000 retail outlets across the UK, excluding the grocery, convenience and minor retail service sectors. As such it is considered to be the only true measure of retail footfall, drawing exclusively on people entering shops rat ..read more

Ipsos Predicts Continued Retail Recovery In Q3 The latest forecast released by Ipsos indicates that footfall in non-food retail stores will continue to strengthen over the summer in the UK, reaching almost three quarters of its 2019 level in Q3. Ipsos’s Retail Traffic Index (RTI) shows that the store recovery has been as it had projected over Q2, with footfall running about two thirds of 2019 levels since the national re-opening. Retail analysts at Ipsos report that the rapid rollout of vaccinations, the steps that retailers have put in place to safeguard their customers and colleagues, the ..read more

Scotland Embraces Retail Reopening Scottish footfall was well above expectations as non-essential stores reopened their doors after a four month lockdown, according to the latest figures from Ipsos. Shopper numbers were down just -6.2% in the first week after reopening on 26 April, compared to the same period in 2019. By contrast, store footfall was down -28.9% during the first week of trading in England and Wales (from 12 April), compared to 2019. Scottish shoppers were eager to return to stores, with the first day of trading seeing footfall rise 21.8% compared to 2019 levels. Tuesday and We ..read more

Retail Recovery Index With non-essential retail allowed to re-open across England from 12 April, the Retail Recovery Index tracks the cities enjoying the best retail recovery as lockdown restrictions gradually ease across the country. The Retail Recovery Index data is constructed from the number of shoppers entering stores using a nationally representative sample of over 4000 retail outlets across the UK, excluding the grocery, convenience and minor retail service sectors. As such it is considered to be the only true measure of retail footfall, drawing exclusively on people entering shops rat ..read more

Day Three Of Retail Re-opening: Settling Into A Pattern The number of shopping trips to non-food stores on Wednesday 14th April in England & Wales was -2.5% lower than on Tuesday and -28.2% down on Wednesday 17th April 2019. The regions that continue to see the slowest recovery compared to the corresponding day in 2019 were London (down -35.3%), Yorkshire & Humberside (-33.5%) and Wales (-32.3%). “After the frantic rush to the shops on the first day of re-opening, the past couple of days have seen numbers settle at a level closer to our expectations, based on the evidence of the last ..read more

Day Two of retail’s re-opening and footfall levels dip, but remain strong The latest update from Ipsos shows that non-food store footfall in England and Wales dipped on Tuesday 13th April after the initial re-opening surge on Monday 12th April (when shopper numbers were down by just -14.2% on the corresponding day in 2019). Footfall on Tuesday was -25.4% down against Tuesday 16th April 2019. Compared to Monday, yesterday’s numbers were -6.8% lower. Stores in the East and West Midlands delivered the strongest bounce back (down -17.5% and -13.1% respectively on the corresponding Tuesday in 2019 ..read more

Store footfall bounce-back far stronger than forecast Monday 12th April – the first day of store trading for non-essential stores in England & Wales this year – produced unexpectedly high footfall. Compared to the same day two years ago (Monday 15th April 2019), shopper numbers in non-food stores in England & Wales were down by just -14.2%, far stronger than the -32.3% deficit when stores re-opened after the November lockdown. The preference was to shop locally rather than venture out to the city centres. Consequently, the return in London was more subdued. There, store footfall was d ..read more

Bricks-and-mortar retail has never been more competitive than it is today. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, some of the UK’s biggest high street brands were struggling to keep their doors open, and the ongoing lockdowns have only made the picture worse. As customers move en masse to the digital space, only those brands which can successfully fuse their in-store and online offerings into a cohesive whole – where each is as important as the other – are likely to survive in the long run. One of the ways that retail brands are redefining themselves for the digital age is by placing themselves ..read more

Welcome to Season 3 Subscribe today: iTunes • Spotify • SoundCloud • Anchor Season 3: Episode 2 – Channel Performance: Size, Measure, Drive. This week of 1st February, we welcome Craig Bradley, Ipsos Global Head of Channel Performance. Craig takes us on a ‘whistle-stop tour’ of Channel Performance, describing how we: size channel opportunities and share; measure brand promises and execution, and drive compliance and sales conversion … to improve performance across all sales and service channels – physical, contact centre, and digital&nb ..read more

Latest figures show shopper numbers were down -72.3% for the week commencing 27 December compared to the same period in 2019. Overall footfall in December after lockdown ended was down -53.7% year-on-year. Areas with toughest local restrictions were hit hardest. Stores in Northern England suffered the least hardship, though the deficit on last year was still substantial at -44.8%. Tougher COVID-19 restrictions kept shoppers away from post-Christmas sales in the last week of December, as footfall across the full four weeks after lockdown was lifted on 3rd December fell to less than half of ..read more