Beauclair Brand Ambassador, Diane Wehrle examines Beauclair’s sales data over Easter 2025 to provide unique insights into consumers’ buying behaviour over this key trading period, enabling towns and cities to maximise the opportunity this delivers to its businesses.
Easter and Christmas are the two key trading periods for retail and retail destinations each year. However, there is a key difference between the two. The vast majority of shopper activity and spending at Christmas actually occurs in the run up to Christmas, whilst spending over Easter – other than Grocery – is largely focused over bank holiday weekend.
Whilst data is available on footfall activity in high streets over Easter, there has been a paucity of insight into actual sales, and therefore the value of the weekend to businesses in town and city centres. Beauclair’s data delivers three key insights:
- Which day was most important in terms of sales?
- Which sectors attracted the most sales?
- What type of spending occurred on which day?
Which day of the Easter weekend was most important in terms of sales?
Good Friday and Easter Saturday were the key spending days during Easter 2025; 39% of total spending took place on Saturday and 33% on Friday. Significantly less spending occurred on Easter Monday (19% of the total) and just 9% on Easter Sunday, which is not surprising as the majority of retail stores were closed.
Easter 2025 was not out of kilter with previous years, with the distribution of spending across the four Easter days in 2025 similar to Easter in each year from 2022 to 2024.
Which sectors attracted the most sales?
Over the year as a whole, 85% of spending is accounted for by five key sectors (Fashion, Food & Drink, General Retail, Grocery and Health & Beauty) but during Easter 2025, the spending in these five sectors increased slightly to 90% of the total.
Throughout 2024 and between January and April 2025, Fashion and Food & Drink together accounted for 44% of total spending in towns and cities. However, during Easter these two sectors increased in importance, accounting for 59% of total town and city centre spending, which mirrored their significance during Easter periods in previous years.
Food & Drink spending during the Easter weekend has an even greater importance for towns and cities than it does over the year as a whole. Over the four day Easter 2025 weekend, Food & Drink accounted for 37% of total sales, a quarter more than between January and April 2025 when it accounted for 25% of total sales.
Fashion sales also increased in significance, accounting for 22% of total sales during the Easter 2025 weekend, versus 18% of the total between January and April 2025.
The evidence also indicates that a large proportion of spending on Fashion – which would have usually been spread throughout the month – was deferred until the Easter weekend. Over Easter 2025 bank holiday weekend Fashion accounted for 22% of sales, but only 18% over the month as a whole. This is similar to 2024 when Fashion accounted for 24% of sales over Easter, but just 17% over the month as a whole.
In contrast, spending on Food & Drink, rather than being deferred from one part of the month to another, ramped up over Easter. During April 2025 as a whole 25% of spending was on Food & Drink – in line with the average of 24% for 2024 – but over the Easter bank holiday weekend it increased in significance, accounting for 37% of total spending. Likewise during Easter 2024 – Food & Drink spending accounted for 36% of the total compared with 26% over the month as a whole.
Grocery spending only accounted for 15% of total town and city centre sales over the 2025 Easter bank holiday. However, it was evident that the majority of Grocery spending took place either pre or post Easter, as this category accounted for 23% of total sales between both January and April 2025, and during April 2025 as a whole.
What type of spending occurred on which day?
Easter has a unique profile in the trading calendar, being the only public holiday weekend that is bookended by two bank holidays with enforced store closure on Sunday. Inevitably this influences the type of spending that takes place on each day over the weekend.
The profile of spending on Good Friday and Easter Saturday were very similar, with Fashion and Food & Drink accounting for over half of total spending, with slightly more Food & Drink spending than Fashion spending taking place.
The profile of spending in towns and cities over the Easter weekend largely reflects the trend over the year as a whole, with Fashion and Food & Drink being the two dominant sectors. However, the influence of these two key sectors is amplified during Easter; over 2024 as a whole and into 2025, Fashion sales accounted for circa 20% of total spending, yet on each trading day over Easter Fashion sales ranged between 26% and 30% of the total. Likewise for Food & Drink; accounting for 24% of total sales throughout 2024 and 25% in 2025, over the three Easter trading days this ranged from 27% to 33% of total sales.
The most significant difference in spending from the norm occurred on Easter Sunday when all retail stores over 2,500 sq m are not allowed to trade. This meant that the vast majority of spending on Easter Sunday in 2025 occurred in Food & Drink (75%), which is a trend that was consistent with previous years – in each year since 2022 this single sector has accounted for over three-quarters of all spending on Easter Sunday.
On Easter Monday 2025 spending shifted slightly, with Fashion spending overtaking spending on Food & Drink (30% of spending was Fashion and 27% was Food & Drink). Again, this is an established pattern of spending, with spending in these sectors occurring in similar proportions on Easter Monday in previous years.
How can this insight support towns and cities to maximise the opportunity offered by Easter?
There are five key insight takeaways from Beauclair’s data:
- Good Friday and Easter Saturday are the key spending days of the bank holiday weekend
- Fashion and Food & Drink spending is more important during Easter than over the year as a whole
- A proportion of Fashion spending during the Easter weekend is deferred from the month as a whole
- Food & Drink spending is not deferred, but ramps up during the Easter weekend
- The majority of Grocery spending takes place either pre or post the Easter weekend
Insight into actual sales over the Easter weekend is invaluable; previously data has been limited to whether Easter was better or worse than Easter in the previous years, either in terms of footfall or for a particular retailer.
Beauclair’s data means that it’s now possible to understand consumer behaviour during Easter, identifying the performance of individual sectors on each day of the weekend. This enables towns and cities to respond with interventions and place making that maximises the opportunity presented by such a key point in the annual trading calendar.