A “Cautious Christmas” has been borne out, with sales in UK town and city centres in December 2024 declining by -7.9% from December 2023.
According to Diane Wehrle, of Rendle Intelligence and Insights & Beauclair’s Brand Ambassador.
My prediction made at the start of Q4 2024 of a “Cautious Christmas” has been borne out, with sales in
UK town and city centres in December 2024 declining by -7.9% from December 2023. With the reporting
period for December based on the calendar month, December’s sales did not include Black Friday when
sales in town and city centres were +14.5% higher than on Black Friday 2023.
The outcome for December reflected significant drops in two of the three key sales metrics, with the
number of customers declining by -7% and transactions by -7.3%. However, average transaction value –
the third key metric in measuring sales – largely held up, with only a marginal drop of -0.7% from
December 2023. This suggests that there is an increasing polarisation between those who are spending
and those who are not, with those who are spending purchasing higher priced products. This is a very
different picture from December 2023, when the average transaction value declined by -2.4% whilst
customer numbers rose by +1.5%.
This polarisation was reflected in the five key sectors that account for 85% of town and city centre sales
(Fashion, Food & Drink, General Retail, Grocery and Health & Beauty). Sales declined annually in all five
sectors, however, the two sectors with the most modest drops in sales (-5.9% for Food & Drink and -4.6%
for Health & Beauty) were also the only two key sectors out of the five where the ATV increased annually
(by +3.1% in Food & Drink and by +4.9% in Health & Beauty).
Of the five key sectors, Grocery recorded the largest annual decline in sales in December of -8.3%, which
contrasted sharply with an annual rise in December 2023 of +2.5%. With food sales increasing by +1.7%
in December (BRC), this result suggests that consumers opted to shop for Grocery in larger stores out of
town where economies in spending can be more easily achieved. Indeed, this is reinforced by data on
footfall into stores on retail parks from Sensormatic. While footfall in retail parks stayed level between
December 2023 and December 2024, it fell in both high streets (-2.7%) and shopping centres (-3.3%).
The table above shows the average performance of a 62 towns and city centres, across a range of key Retail Spend metrics.