Scotland’s shops welcomed fewer customers last month than were tempted on to high streets elsewhere across Britain, new figures have shown.
Footfall data showed Scotland’s main retailers continued to underperform during February compared to the overall UK average.
Although shopper numbers north of the border registered an improvement upon the 6.3% decline experienced in January, the latest statistics from the Scottish Retail Consortium Springboard Footfall Monitor dropped by 2.5% on last year and failed to come close to the 0.8% increase achieved by the UK average.
“Scottish footfall levels in February continued to be below the UK average,” said Fiona Moriarty, director of the SRC.
She said the figures tallied with lower levels of consumer confidence and lower levels of sales growth.
“Although February’s sales figures showed some encouraging signs of improvement we are reminded that the economic and trading environment remains fragile,” added Ms Moriarty.
“Scottish retailers will be hoping that the arrival of spring and seasonal lifts from Mother’s Day and Easter help to elevate this underwhelming figure into more positive territory in the coming months.”
In contrast to Scottish footfall figures, the rising UK average supports the recent uplift in retail sales reported by the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor, wheretotal sales growth reached a three-year high.
Bouncing back best across the UK, footfall improved by the greatest level on the high streets, which saw a 2.7% increase compared with a year earlier the strongest growth since December 2011.
Footfall in shopping centres conversely fell by 1.6%.
The figure for out-of-town locations and retail parks dropped by 1.5%.
However, Diane Wehrle, research director at Springboard, maintained this is a significant improvement on January’s figures.
“The disparity could be explained by the recent decline in multiples being primarily located in shopping centres and retail parks, with high streets offering a wider diversity,” she said.
“The half-term week was spread over the last two weeks of the month this year compared with just the third week last year
“Whilst the fourth week recorded an annual increase of 2.6% for shopping centres, its benefit was countered by a year-on-year decline of 7.3% in the third week of the month.
“For the high street, one swallow does not make a summer.
“However, these results might hint at the green shoots of recovery, or at least some stabilisation in the current environment,” said Ms Wehrle.
business@thecourier.co.uk