Footfall Insights April 2025

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Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat about footfall trends and shopping behaviours from February to March 2025, focusing on the impact of Easter timing differences on year-over-year comparisons. The conversation explores how footfall, consumer confidence, and inflation metrics are painting a complex picture of the retail landscape with some sectors showing signs of recovery despite challenging conditions

• Footfall into stores down 5.4% overall and 4% in high streets (comparing non-Easter March 2025 vs Easter March 2024)
• Food and drink spending dropped 6.3% this March compared to a 9.8% increase last March during Easter
• Fashion sector showing signs of recovery with only a 2.7% decline, better than February's 7.4% drop
• Grocery spending decreased by 5.4% versus a 3.5% rise last March due to Easter timing
• Consumer confidence slightly improved from -20% to -19%, with better outlook on general economic situation
• Inflation dropped to 2.6% in March (from 2.8% in February), with clothing at just 1.1% inflation
• Hospitality remains challenging with high inflation at 4.22%, affected by labour costs and minimum wage increases
• Upcoming National Insurance payment increases likely to impact businesses and consumer spending patterns
• Next month's data will show the combined impact of the Easter shift and provide clearer year-over-year comparison

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Productivity Podcast.
Diane Wohl, CEO at RendallIntelligence and Insights, joins
me for our monthly chat and weare looking at February 2025 to
March 2025.
Hi, Diane.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi Simon.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
How are you All refreshed from holiday?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I am, I am.
I am pleased to be back,although it was a great time in
the US and the southern states.
It was fabulous.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Good and hopefully you brought back some good news
with you yeah, someprospectively good news.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I mean, I think we're sitting at the tipping point.
So March, of course, this yearwe're comparing against an
Easter month last year so it wasnon Easter this year versus
Easter last year, so that hashad an impact on both footfall
and sales, somewhat inevitably.
So footfall, according toSensomatic and this is footfall

(00:49):
into stores was down 5.4% anddown 4% in high streets in March
and that's very close to theresults from Beauclair, who
track high street spending.
And that was down 4.6% annuallyin March.
So, again, as I said, comparingMarch this year, which wasn't

(01:13):
Easter, versus March last yearthat was Easter.
So yes, so it was down, butthat's of course explainable,
but there's been, you know,there were some key hits on
certain sectors in terms ofspending that drove that result.
So food and drink was hit thisMarch, dropped by 6.3% because
of course we didn't have thehospitality spend that we would
over an Easter period, whereaslast March, which included

(01:35):
Easter, hospitality, food anddrink went up by 9.8% annually.
So you can see the difference.
On the good news front, fashion, which has been a bit of a
nemesis for retail over the lastfew months, whilst not great,
still negative at 2.7% drop fromMarch last year.
That's a better result thanFebruary when it dropped by 7.4%

(01:57):
and actually a better resultthan March last year when it
dropped by 4.2%.
So we perhaps are seeing someinklings of a recovery in the
fashion sector.
That's good it is good, isn't it?
And then grocery, of course,was hit this March because
people weren't buying EasterSunday lunch this March.
So grocery dropped by 5.4%that's grocery spending versus a

(02:17):
rise of 3.5% last March.
So really, the results we'reseeing are the impact of this
non-Easter versus an Eastermonth.
So fingers crossed we see thatswing come back.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
yes, I mean, hopefully it will bode well for
april, when, of course, we haveeaster in there.
So so tricky, tricky month togauge, but not not a disaster in
a non-like for like comparison.
Good news for fashion.
What about things like consumerconfidence?
Because I know we've talkedabout that before as well and
that had taken a real negativeturn.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes, I mean there's been a little sort of
improvement at the edges withconsumer confidence.
We're not seeing any greatmassive recovery.
It edged up a little bit.
So GFK's consumer confidenceindex score moved from minus 20
in February to minus 19 in March, so a slight improvement.
And, interestingly, all of theimprovement was in how people

(03:13):
feel about the general economicsituation over the next year and
over the last year.
So there's an indexspecifically for what people
feel is going to happen over thenext 12 months and that index
score rose from minus 31 inFebruary to minus 29 in March.
It's a slight improvement.
But we've got to put it intocontext because in June last

(03:34):
year we were looking at an indexscore for that economic
situation minus 11.
So we are a long way off thatnow.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, and is that any linkages to inflation?
I know there was kind of somepotentially lower than expected
results, but how does that spanacross the different sectors?

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, I haven't run a correlation between inflation
and confidence, but inflationhas reduced.
So in March CPI was down 2.6%,down from 2.8% in February and
3% in January, so it's thelowest it's been this year and
actually the inflation has beenlower on some of the key sectors

(04:15):
that really impact the highstreet clothing and footwear
inflation is sitting at 1.1%,which is really quite low
actually.
And also you know you knowutilities home utilities,
housing, water, electricity, gas, etc.
At 1.8.
So they're doing not so bad.

(04:35):
Clothing and footwear is onlinewith major, it's online with
the CPI at 2.6.
So you know we're seeing, youknow, good, steady results.
The fly in the ointment reallyis restaurants and hotels or
hospitality, and that'sinflationary at 4.22 percent
still.
So it's still high, um.

(04:55):
So that really is going toimpact what people want to yeah,
prices in for meals out anddrinks out, and what people are
going to want to spend theirmoney on I assume that's driven
by their costs in terms of rawingredients and things and,
potentially, scarcity of laborabsolutely.
yeah, I, you're paying moresalary.
You know.
The key factors there, ofcourse, are apart from rent and

(05:17):
fixed costs is labour and rawmaterials.
And labour, as we know, hasgone up with the increase in the
minimum wage and we're lookingwe're standing at the precipice
of an increase in NI payments aswell, so that's going to push
it up even further, I wouldimagine.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah so, and NI payments as well.
So that's going to push it upeven further, I would imagine.
Yeah, so I mean next month willbe interesting to see looking
across kind of March and April,if overall we're up based on
Easter, switching months as itkind of tends to do, depending
on where it falls in the year,but also probably not till May,
will we really see the impact ofthe NI, because at the time of
recording it's live, but reallypeople's payroll won't run until

(05:56):
the end of April, which will betheir first view of how close
they're forecasting and a massword to what's actually going to
get paid out and that might notthen come through into any
figures until May.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, it's just whether people are anticipating
it and trying to put theirprices up a little earlier than
they than they possibly would do, because it's in the news and
people know about it and peoplesort of expecting it almost.
Um.
So but I think we'll see.
As you say, we'll see the majorimpact in the next couple of
months definitely yeah, andwe'll see where the um consumer
confidence goes.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
It's.
It's interesting, I find itinteresting it's kind of dropped
by or gone up by fivepercentage points, even though
it's it's interesting.
I find it interesting it's kindof dropped by or gone up by
five percentage points, eventhough it's still 29 percentage
points negative um, based on thefact that I'm no clearer on
what the world economy is doingand clearly there's key
influences out there in indifferent countries that are
pulling some of the strings andI'm not quite sure they're clear

(06:49):
either.
So it's interesting that peoplefeel more comfortable with it.
I don't know what's changedsince the last time we've talked
.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Really, yeah, I think there's a little bit more of
stability.
I think, you know, mostconsumers do like a sort of
stable economic environment andso there's been less news about
the domestic economy over thelast month, I feel, because of
the tariff situation with Trump.
So it's less focus on theconcerns around the UK economy

(07:16):
and more news about the USeconomy and the worldwide
economy and I think people feelthat the emphasis has been taken
away from the UK economy alittle bit and therefore it must
be making people a little bitmore comfortable.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Interesting, interesting.
Well, I'm sure he's not goingto be quiet in the next month
before we speak again, so we'llsee what, uh, what dramas that
that brings to the conversationabsolutely absolutely perfect.
Appreciate the time again.
Great to have an update.
Look forward to seeing howeaster impacts the, the figures,
and hopefully we've got somesome good news to share across

(07:51):
those two months combined.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
The next time we chat lovely, looking forward to it,
simon thank you thanks.