UK Xmas retail sales grew 2.2 percent helped by clothing and food online

As online retail within the UK is predicted to continue to grow albeit faced with the challenges on retail logistics, spending on clothing and food online helped to boost UK retail sales growth of 2.2 percent over the December festive period, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse.

Among the big winners were clothing sales which increased by 13.7 percent year-on-year, however, luxury goods and jewellery were down by 3.4 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively on 2016.

Mastercard also revealed Christmas trading was tough with weaker footfall in the Boxing Day sales, largely due to holiday discounting that started earlier around Black Friday, which impacted the year-on-year results.

According to Scott Abrahams, senior vice president of business development at Mastercard UK and Ireland, there was a mixed performance among retailers although those British retailers with a strong online presence showed optimistic results.

“When looking at the year as a whole, 2017 saw retail sales increase 4 percent. Although Christmas trading was tough and showed a mixed performance among retailers, these results do show that there some areas of optimism for British retailers, particularly those with a strong online presence.”

Meanwhile Westfield, owned by Europe’s largest shopping mall operators, has revealed an increase of visitors over the Christmas period in 2017, registering 14.1 million shoppers at Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City, with an overall year-on-year 1% increase.

Westfield 's shopping malls experienced three peak trading periods in November and December, notably the Black Friday weekend that saw 850,000 visitors, the ‘Super Weekend’ (the last weekend before Christmas) with more than 800,000 visitors bringing the pre-Christmas week trade to 1.85m and the Boxing Day sales period with more than 320,000 visitors.

Myf Ryan, Chief Marketing Officer, Westfield UK and Europe, said by offering a mix of retail, dining, events, leisure and entertainment, Westfield had lured visitors away from the comfort of their home to their shopping malls.  

Over the Christmas period, we offered many unique and immersive experiences to our customers. With over 70 million visitors coming to the centres each year, we are looking forward to creating even more exciting experiences and activities for our customers to enjoy in 2018,” says Ryan.

Festive events created and hosted by Westfield included having pop star Gwen Stefani to switch on the Westfield London Christmas lights with a special festive performance and a “first to the UK ground-breaking technology” Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire hyper reality experience.