Boxing Day sales footfall falls for third consecutive year

Despite hundreds of shoppers flocking to Norwich's city centre for the Boxing Day sales, across the rest of the county and country, footfall figures on the high street the day after Christmas Day has fallen for the third consecutive year.

Fears continue to mount for the troubled sector, as retail intelligence specialists Springboard confirmed footfall fell by 3.1% on Boxing Day this year.

It represents the third year in a row of falling figures and follows on from Boxing Day 2017 and 2016, when the numbers also dropped, by 4.7% and 4% respectively.

Retail parks bore the brunt of the pain this year, recording a 7.2% decline in shopper numbers.

Springboard put the poor performance in retail parks down to low consumer confidence, putting shoppers off from spending significant sums on large household goods or furniture.

Shopping centres stomached a 5% fall, while high street footfall edged down 0.3%.

Springboard said: 'Whilst the larger, newer centres have a good hospitality offer, smaller, older centres do not and so the options for eating out are very limited, which encourages shoppers into high streets.'

It has been a torrid year for retailers with notable high street names such as Poundworld and Maplin falling into administration, Marks & Spencer and Debenhams announcing plans to shutter stores, while Superdry, Carpetright and Card Factory have all issued profit warnings.