By Karen Peattie

SHOPPERS are trickling back to high streets and shopping centres with footfall in October slightly better than September, according to figures from the Scottish Retail Consortium and Sensormatic IQ – but Scotland is still lagging behind the UK average.

In the four weeks from October 2-29, Scottish footfall decreased by 12 per cent on a year-on-three-year basis, 1.4 percentage points better than September but worse than the UK average decline of 11.8%. Shopping centre footfall dropped by 18.6% in October in Scotland, an improvement on September’s decline of 19.7%.

But on a more positive note, on a year-on-year basis, total Scottish footfall increased by 5.8%, shopping centres by 7.1% and footfall in Glasgow increased by 10.1% in October compared to the year-on-three-year decrease of 9.1% for the period.

SRC director David Lonsdale was upbeat about October’s performance. “This is a modest but nonetheless slightly more chipper set of results for shopper footfall in the early part of what is the critical ‘golden quarter’ of festive trading,” he said.

"Scottish footfall recorded its second-best monthly performance of the year during October, albeit still down one-eighth on pre-pandemic levels.

"Retailers’ promotions, new seasonal ranges and signs of early festive purchasing helped drive a broad-based improvement across all retail destinations.

“Shopping centres secured their best foot-traffic performance of 2022 and Glasgow nudged into single digits for the first time.”

But Mr Lonsdale cautioned: “The trick, as ever, for retailers is converting this uptick into sales at the tills and sustaining the improvement against a backdrop in which concerns over the cost of living and disruption on the railways show little sign of abating."

“Retailers are stiving to play their part by keeping down shop prices. However, that’s made all the harder due to a hodgepodge of Government-mandated cost rises.

“The economic landscape has shifted markedly this year and decisions are needed to keep business rates down and ease the regulatory burden.”

Andy Sumpter, retail consultant at Sensormatic Solutions, said that Halloween sales had offered some respite to the high street but shoppers were “spooked” by the rising cost of living and remained cautious although Scotland “managed to buck this trend”.

He noted: “As consumers and retailers both adapt to what’s being coined the ‘new abnormal’, in which economic and political uncertainty creates new – and increasingly frequent – curveballs, retailers will be hoping to minimise disruption to safeguard their Christmas performance.

“Furthermore, with planned postal strikes in November risking disruption to Black Friday deliveries, retailers will be encouraging shoppers to head in-store rather than risking delayed deliveries when shopping online for Black Friday deals.”