The crisis on Britain’s high streets is to intensify this Christmas, with shopkeepers preparing themselves for the quietest festive period since the credit crunch, according to forecasts.
A combination of low consumer confidence because of Brexit, more agile online competitors and Christmas shoppers increasingly buying experiences such as concert tickets instead of products, will combine to ruin the season for more high-street stores, said the retail research group Springboard.
Footfall – a measure of the number of shoppers visiting stores – is expected to decline by 4.2% this month compared with the same time in 2017, when visitor levels fell by 3.5%.
