Black Friday received “blue rinse treatment”, says retail intelligence firm
Ipsos Retail Performance, the global retail and footfall consultant which compiles the Retail Traffic Index (RTI), has reported a recovery in in-store footfall for November but says Black Friday lost its momentum.
New RTI figures – which are derived from the number of individual shoppers entering over 4,000 non-food retail stores across the UK – reveal that seasonal spending was only marginally pulled forward with the arrival of Black Friday. Footfall in non-food stores was down by 2.1% on last year compared to a rise of +0.9% in 2016, but numbers over the whole Black Friday week fell 3.8% short of 2017, though it still delivered a 19.6% boost on the previous week in November. Total month-on-month footfall rose 8.1%.
“Black Friday received the blue rinse treatment in the UK this year, as it lost its appeal and showed its age,” said Dr Tim Denison, director of retail intelligence at Ipsos Retail Performance.
“The event is widely regarded by British retailers as one of the worst things to have come out of the United States, culling October sales and undermining consumers’ willingness to pay full prices at a time when they are supposed to be ready to loosen their purse-strings for the Christmas splurge.
“All the attention now turns to the most important month of the retail calendar,” added Denison.
“Our early store footfall forecast in the non-food sector will fall by just 3.6% year-on-year, the smallest decline in any month since July 2017.
“As in recent years, most festive in-store shopping is expected to be squeezed into the last week before Christmas.”
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