ReThink Productivity Podcast
In this exciting podcast, Simon Hedaux from ReThink Productivity shares his insights and strategies for improving productivity and efficiency in the retail and hospitality industries. With the help of clients, partners, and the ReThink team, Simon covers everything from measuring and tracking productivity to developing and implementing effective strategies.
Whether you're a business owner, manager, or employee, this podcast is a must-listen for anyone who wants to learn how to get more done and improve their bottom line.
Here's what you can expect to learn:
- How to measure and track productivity
- Proven strategies for improving efficiency and reducing waste
- How to create a culture of productivity and innovation
- Tips for motivating and engaging your team
- Real-world examples of how other businesses have used ReThink Productivity to achieve success
Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn from the experts and get ahead of the curve with your own business.
ReThink Productivity Podcast
Footfall Insights July 2024
Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat about footfall trends and shopping behaviours. They cover:
- Footfall trends from May to June 2024
- The key risers and fallers
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Welcome to the Productivity Podcast. It's our monthly catch-up with Dan Will, ceo at Rendell Intelligence and Insights. Hi Di, welcome back.
Speaker 2:Hi, simon. Thank you, lovely to be here, as always.
Speaker 1:No problem, and we're quickly racing through the year. We're in May to June, so pre-election for those that can remember that far back start of the Euros, and again not massively great weather, if my memory serves me right.
Speaker 2:No, it's not been superb, has it? I don't think I've really got my summer outfits out properly yet, which says everything really to me.
Speaker 1:So where did we fare? Because it was okay, I remember from April to May we had a couple of bank holidays as well, which always makes it tricky for comparison, but it was relatively steady, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean May was boosted by the two bank holidays. The book ended the month, which really helped. And then we go into June and it wasn't quite as rosy. We've got retail sales and we've got footfall. So we'll talk footfall first. Footfall in June was 2.3% below where it was in June 2023. That's not surprising.
Speaker 2:I keep saying every time we talk, don't I, simon, that actually this trajectory of downward footfall is commonplace. It's what we would expect to see. Fewer people over time are visiting stores because we have a wider variety of how, of choice, of how we buy um. So whilst footfalls an indicator, it's not the only indicator. And then when we look at sales and we have sales data from beauclair, which looks at sales across the uk's towns and cities, which is fascinating because it looks at 10 different sectors across a range of different metrics um sales as a whole in value terms was just 0.6. It was 4.7% below June 2023.
Speaker 2:So you know we took a bit of a tumble from May where it was just 0.6% below May 2023. So those bank holidays did help in May and so sales weren't quite as robust in June. And there are a lot of facts there. Obviously, we didn't have bank holidays did help in May, and so sales weren't quite as robust in June, and there are a lot of facts there. Obviously we didn't have bank holidays. Whilst we had the Euros starting, the weather wasn't great, but also we had the impending election and the. You know the jury's out as to whether that impacts consumer behavior, but certainly there is some data that suggests that it makes people feel less confident and they're less willing to spend.
Speaker 1:So kind of relatively flat Euros don't think had a massive impact.
Speaker 2:Not particularly. I mean, the main impact would have been in grocery, of course, and in food and drink. And food and drink was 0.5% above June 2023. So not massively higher. I mean in May it was 3.7% above May 2023. So those bank holidays did more for food and drink than the Euros. But of course it was only half the match, half the tournament, the other half in July. So it would be nice, I think it would have helped individual businesses, but nationally, I think not so much really. And actually fashion spending took a bit of a dive again. Fashion spending in May was 4.2% below the previous year. June it dropped down to 6.8% below and probably undoubtedly the weather. There's no real incentive to buy new clothes when it's not particularly warm out. So that has had an impact and so I'm expecting to see quite a few discounting going on as we go through into the late summer.
Speaker 1:And July takes us to the end of the Euros, start of the Olympics, which I doubt has much impact again.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean it'll be interesting to see the food and drink spend in July. I would hope that it would be a little bit higher. I'm not sure the Olympics will have a huge amount of impact, so it's a case of waiting to see. But it's quite interesting with the election actually and the potential impact that had on how we behave in terms of personal shopping behavior. Certainly gfk, the the guys that track consumer um confidence, identified that people's confidence around their own personal situation declined and they run an index score and the index score in may was seven in. In june it was four. So people clearly didn't feel quite as confident in june as they had in may.
Speaker 2:Um and actually Global Data the data people did some work looking at the growth in spending volumes in the month prior to elections. They looked at the past eight elections and they showed actually that in the month prior to the previous eight elections volumes dropped by 3% but rose in the month following the election by 1.9 percent. So I think there may be some pullback due to the election. People are not. People don't like change, particularly don't like uncertainty. Why would we so? I think they would just probably held back a little bit on the spending and not helped by the weather yeah, so it could be slightly more positive in july.
Speaker 1:Um, as we're, we're kind of halfway through that month and again, the weather's not been great, so there's still that which could impact on the sales and discounting which we're starting to see come through from, certainly, fashion, where they're going to be potentially left with a load of wrong season apparel.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, I mean fingers it. It does improve. I mean the problem with fashion is that it accounts for a large proportion of total total spending in towns and cities, about over 20 percent. So of course you know towns and cities as a whole across the uk are severely impacted if fashion isn't doing well. And then individual towns and cities are impacted very severely, um, and that will drive their margins down in late summer. So, um, and it's not the drop in sales hasn't been so much the amount people spent per transaction. The average transaction value has been maintained. It's just people are buying fewer products. You know they're not just buying as much um, so um, retailers out there need to be try to persuade customers to make make more purchases yeah, yeah, the age-old challenge, and we've clearly still got all the mortgage rate stuff playing through.
Speaker 1:So I think there's a. I was looking at some stats the other day. I think there's another. The next big wave, I think, is October, november, for people coming off at fixed rates and then clearly, unfortunately, seeing a big jump in rates. So that'll be interesting as we navigate towards Christmas, black Friday, all those other bits around that time, in terms of how that affects spending.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, the worst thing for households is to have a huge increase in your mortgage payment, just in what we would call the golden quarter or the start of the golden quarter. Um, I will be putting a forecast together for the golden quarter which, um, I'm looking forward to presenting at the forum in september yeah, I'm coming along too, which would be really interesting, but it's, you know, it's it's not going to bode well if, as a household, you know you've got another 400 pounds or so to spend on your mortgage, which you would have allocated that to your christmas budget. So it is going to impact consumers quite severely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, coupled with, like you say, the certainty or uncertainty of a new government and when or how quickly they deliver on some of the promises or don't deliver on some of the promises. And certainly from a Labour Party point of view, not increasing tax was a big part of their manifesto, certainly kind of income tax and VAT etc. But there wasn't really much talk around interest rates, corporation tax or all the other taxes that exist around that. So it again fuels that uncertainty if we're not careful.
Speaker 2:Yes, and of course at at the moment we've got summer recess, so they're not back. You know, sitting in parliament for a few weeks and so it's all a bit. We've got this hiatus until uh, you know, at least the next month before we can start to feel what's going to happen. So that leads to uncertainty as well excellent.
Speaker 1:We'll pause there. We'll be back in a couple of weeks time and we'll do um what would be july? No june to july. I always get my months wrong. Um, hopefully we've had a bit of nice weather. Then that'll stimulate some sales. Um, we'll see what the olympics brings. We'll see if there's any things that start to come through from the new government.
Speaker 2:So there's some positive signs there, but there's also a, I suppose a wind of caution as well absolutely, absolutely, um, but hopefully I I am hopeful that the christmas period, the golden quarter this year will be more positive than last year, because that was particularly negative. So I keep my fingers crossed good fingers crossed.
Speaker 1:Well, fingers crossed for christmas. We're not that close, but we're not that far away either. But short-term fingers crossed for some sun yeah, absolutely brilliant. Thanks die. I'll catch you next month thanks, simon.
