{"id":209773,"date":"2025-12-25T05:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T05:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/209773\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T05:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T05:26:12","slug":"more-shoppers-hit-high-streets-and-retail-parks-for-late-christmas-purchases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/209773\/","title":{"rendered":"More shoppers hit high streets and retail parks for late Christmas purchases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More shoppers visited shops and retail destinations compared with a year ago, according to early data.<\/p>\n<p>Figures from retail technology specialists MRI Software showed footfall up to 1pm on Christmas Eve was up 2.4% compared with the same day a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p>This also represented a 20.5% jump against a week earlier, with many Britons leaving their shopping late.<\/p>\n<p>It said this was particularly driven by a large number of shoppers visiting retail parks for last-minute purchases.<\/p>\n<p>Retail park footfall rose 6.6% compared with a year earlier and was 36.3% higher week-on-week.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2.82885510.jpg\" alt=\"Two women with shopping bags\" data-title=\"Shopping on Christmas Eve\" data-copyright-holder=\"PA Wire\" data-copyright-notice=\"PA Wire\/PA Images\" data-credit=\"Jacob King\" data-usage-terms=\"\"  \/>Footfall was up on this time last year, figures showed (Jacob King\/PA)<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, footfall on high streets lifted by 1.1% year-on-year, and shopping centres reported a 1% increase.<\/p>\n<p>Jenni Matthews, retail analyst at MRI Software, told the Press Association: \u201cIt has been a tough year for retailers after they first felt the impact of last year\u2019s autumn budget, which led to increases in labour costs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany are now expecting higher business rates next year too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe footfall shows that people are still out and about, shopping in their towns and cities across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Regional data showed that Wales saw a particular surge in last-minute shopping, with shopper traffic lifting by 7.9% year-on-year.<\/p>\n<p>Many shoppers also ventured into London to snap up presents, with it reporting a 2.6% increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More shoppers visited shops and retail destinations compared with a year ago, according to early data. Figures from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-209773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}