UK shoppers undeterred on Black Friday
Despite the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, customers splurged on deals this Black Friday.
Data from Barclaycard, who process £1 in every £3 spent in the UK, saw an increase of 3.2% in the volume of payments by 17:00 on Friday, compared to the same time last year.
Research from Sensormatic IQ reported footfall on was higher this Black Friday, with an increase of 3.7% against a year ago, and a huge 32.9% week-on-week increase. Although high streets saw an increase in footfall of 13.9%, physical retail is still not seeing the levels it enjoyed prior to the pandemic, with Black Friday footfall down 21.3% compared to pre-COVID levels.
Festival Place in Basingstoke saw an increase of 0.4% in footfall compared to last year, and a 10.2% increase from the week before.
The World Cup was expected by many to hinder Black Friday sales, however the data from Barclaycard and Sensormatic IQ suggested it helped boost retail sales in England, with shopper traffic count up 5.7% year-on-year.
Marc Pettican, head of Barclaycard Payments, said on Friday: “We’re now able to look at the majority of Black Friday sales data, and we can see that the number of transactions has increased when compared to last year.
“Sales volumes have also continued to rise since lunchtime, confirming that Black Friday is still an important milestone in the retail calendar. This is encouraging news for retailers who will have been unsure about the outcome of today, given the rising cost-of-living.”
Nationwide Building Society also said its customers made 8% more purchases by 2pm than last year, and a third more than in 2020. It predicted that Black Friday would be the busiest day of the year for retail.
However, demand for deliveries was down 5% on what is one of the busiest days of the year, according to delivery technology group Metapack. Physical video game sales were also down 15% compared to the year before over the week, according to GfK data.