Visits to U.K. Stores Fell in Quarter Through July, BRC Says

Visits to U.K. stores fell in the three months through July as soaring prices squeezed spending power and concerns about job security grew, the British Retail Consortium said.

The number of shoppers in malls, town centers and out-of- town shopping parks declined 1 percent from a year earlier, the London-based industry group said in a report published today. Eleven percent of ground-floor stores in U.K. town centers and malls were vacant in May, it said.

“All types of shopping locations saw reduced footfall year-on-year,” BRC Director General Stephen Robertson said. “Fewer people are shopping because households are facing high inflation, low wage growth and uncertainty about future job prospects.”

The BRC-ATCM-Springboard Retail Footfall Monitor was published by the BRC, the Association of Town Centre Management and Springboard for the first time today. The gauge measures visits per week at more than 500 shopping locations in 152 towns and cities across the U.K.

To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Hamilton in London at shamilton8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net