1. Sales in September dropped compared to August
Across the 62 city centres that Beauclair is currently monitoring retail sales in September dropped -4% compared to August.
There was quite a range between these extremes. Tourist destinations tended to drop by much more, with a drop of over -40% in Edinburgh and drops of around -20% in Blackpool, Bournemouth and Brighton.
Meanwhile a small number of cities experienced monthly sales growth, with Portsmouth showing the highest growth level at +8%.
2. Sales have got stronger on a Year-on-3-Year basis
Looked at on a Year-on-3-Year (Yo3Y) basis, however, the picture is very different. Sales in September 2022 were +2% above sales in September 2019 (Beauclair is still using 2019 as a baseline for measuring sales as the last complete pre-covid year). This is a 4 percentage-point increase on August’s Yo3Y figure of -2%.
The increasing strength of city centre retail sales can be seen more clearly by looking at Year-to-Date figures. In January-March 2022 retail sales were -5/6% lower than the same period in 2019. Apart from a slight hiccough in August, Year-to-Date sales have improved in each month, reaching -1% in September.
3. Sales have still not recovered to 2019 levels
It is important not to over-state the strength of city centre retail; sales are still on average below the level of 2019 despite the significant inflation since then.
4. Sales are being driven exclusively by increased customer numbers, spending per customer has not increased
Customer numbers (based on unique card users within the relevant time period) show an almost perfect correlation with sales levels, meaning that sales are being driven exclusively by customer numbers.
The positive side of this is that city centres can expect sales to continue to rise if more people come back to city centres. This has been the trend throughout 2022. In January to March customer numbers were -5% down on the same period in 2019 but for July to September customer numbers increased to +2% above the same period in 2019.
On the downside, average revenue per city centre customer has not budged since 2019, failing to keep up with inflation and failing to respond to any improvements that city centres have made to their retail offer.