SCOTLAND’S retailers received a pre-Easter boost with news that more shoppers were pounding the pavements again in the five-week period up to April 1 with their endeavours making footfall better than the UK average of 6.8% year on year.

But “enhanced levels of consumer confidence and spending and will be central to Scotland’s economic recovery”, the Scottish Retail Consortium has said.

While Scottish footfall increased by 12% in March, it remained 2.5 percentage points weaker that February, leading David Lonsdale, director of the SRC to caution that retailers will “need to wait a little before breaking out the bunting” and that despite the improving picture, footfall remains a tenth below pre-pandemic levels.

He said: “Retailers are playing their part in trying to tempt shoppers. However, Scottish ministers and local authorities need to continue to support the industry and retail destinations over the coming months, and consider what more can be done to entice and stimulate shoppers to return.

“A good place to start would be delivering on the First Minister’s leadership campaign pledge to accelerate the work of the city centres recovery taskforce.”

Mr Lonsdale continued: “Scotland was the best-performing nation or region within the UK in March with shopper footfall up by an eighth on last year. However, retailers will need to wait a little before breaking out the bunting as this uptick was swollen by the weak comparable given lingering Omicron restrictions on shops and eateries remained in place for much of March 2022.”

The SRC-Sensormatic IQ Footfall Monitor for March, while noting that footfall in Edinburgh increased by 24.4% year on year and, in Glasgow, by 11.9% year on year, also revealed that footfall in shopping centres increased by a significant 37.2% in March (YoY) in Scotland, although this was 4.6 percentage points weaker than February.

Compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels, total Scottish footfall was 10.2% lower, Scotland’s shopping centres were 16.2% down, and footfall in Edinburgh and Glasgow was lower by 2.4 % and 9.5% respectively.

“While visits to stores continues to improve, especially in shopping centres, this was the weakest overall rate of footfall growth witnessed since October,” Mr Lonsdale added.

At Sensormatic Solutions, Andy Sumpter, retail consultant (EMEA) described the improvement last month as “no small feat given the backdrop of ongoing cost of living pressures, stubbornly high inflation and strike disruptions continuing to simmer away”.

Retail parks, he noted, remained the “outlier”, with a slightly more suppressed recovery due to their tenant mix of predominantly furniture, kitchen and bed retail outlets, and cautious shoppers holding off purchasing big-ticket items.

“While the retail footfall recovery slowed marginally last month compared to pre-pandemic levels, we continue to see shopper numbers normalise and the ebbs and flows in performance are becoming less pronounced,” said Mr Sumpter.

“We also see, perhaps, as a consequence of hybrid working becoming the norm and the significance of the weekend rising, Friday and Monday trailing behind.”

Behind Edinburgh and Glasgow at the top of city footfall league table for March were London and Cardiff, up 7.8% and 6.8% respectively. Birmingham was at the bottom, up 2.3%.