Here are some of the Key Trends in City Centre Retail Spending we prepared for our panel appearance at the recent Association of Town and Country Managers (ATCM) 2023 Summer Conference e.g. Post Covid City Centres are becoming more local and less affluent. Read on to find out more..
City Centres are losing share of retail spending
- FY 2022 vs FY 2019, overall retail spending +28% vs city centre spending (measured across our 62 UK city base) was flat.
Online is a key factor
- The massive short-term increase in online spending associated with lockdown has subsided, and online spending still smaller than offline (2022 offline spend 70% vs online 30%) but growing at x4 times the rate of offline spending (2022 vs 2019 offline +16% vs online +58%).
Inflation is hitting Northern city centers more than those in the South –
- The Centre for Cities used data from Beauclair to produce a Cost of Living Tracker and an inflation rate for 62 GB cities. Of the 10 cities with the highest inflation rate, 6 are in North of England, 2 each in the Midlands & Scotland, while 9 /10 with lowest inflation rates are in South of England.
The threat of online is a bigger driver of sector performance than inflation
- Food and drink is the strongest sector, growth across Sales, Customers & Average Transaction Value. It’s the only sector for which city centre sales is ahead of offline spending in the rest of the country, growing x3 times faster. It has smallest percentage of online sales.
- In contrast, General Retail declines across all measures and has the highest proportion of online sales.
Footfall and spend data are not the same
- For example, Go!Southhampton saw lower footfall alongside higher sales. While fewer people were returning to the city centre, those who returned were staying longer, with correlations between increased dwell time and sales for “in-person” or experiential spending such as Health & Beauty, Food & Drink and Entertainment. This suggests that offline spending is being increasingly focused on transactions which take more time than a simple purchase and which are re-engaging people, and enabling town and city centres to compete with online retail offerings.
Post Covid, across the Beauclair client base, City Center customers tend to be less affluent and more local
If you have any questions at all on our insights, or would like to book a demo to see what bespoke insights we could provide to YOUR BID, city centre or town, please don’t hesitate to get in touch nicki@beauclairdata.co.uk or 07311 385775.