Online transactions up 7% over long weekend, but high street footfall drops.
Consumers headed online for their shopping sprees over the Easter weekend, with Storm Katie deterring visits to the high street.
Easter footfall figures from retail specialist Springboard show an overall decline of 1.9% for UK retail destinations over the weekend.
However, figures taken from PCA Predict’s online tracker – Big Data Labs – show that ecommerce transactions were up 7% over the period.
The high street, meanwhile, saw footfall drop 4.9%. Shopping centres and retail parks saw increases of 2.5% and 0.4% respectively.
While bricks and mortar retail suffered the effects of the bad weather on Easter Sunday and Monday, online shopping transactions increased on Saturday, Sunday and Monday by 9%, 12% and 10% respectively.
However, Good Friday secured positive trading for physical retail, with a boost in footfall across all retail destinations, and online shopping down 6%.
Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: “Easter 2016 has been an interesting trading experience for both UK retailers and e-commerce – it revealed how the two trading platforms complement each other.
“Good Friday’s encouraging footfall figures compared with the following days is proof the high street experience is still important for shoppers, though weather dependent.
“The fact that national payday only falls this week following the long weekend, and that large retail stores are unable to trade on Easter Sunday were other factors to take into account when looking at the overall Easter weekend footfall figures for retail destinations.”
