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 June 2025
Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat about footfall trends. The retail landscape continues to face challenges as May's data reveals decreased footfall and consumer spending across most sectors, with fashion retail experiencing a particularly steep decline of 3.6% year-on-year.
• High street footfall down 2.5% with only retail parks showing a minimal increase of 0.2%
• Overall spending in high streets down 1.8% year-on-year, worse than last May's 0.6% decline
• Non-food retail sales dropped by 1.1% despite overall sales increasing by 1%
• Fashion retail continues its two-year decline, dropping 3.6% in May
• General retail, previously performing well, has now slipped to 0.7% down
• Post-pandemic work patterns have fundamentally changed clothing needs with many consumers now maintaining just one wardrobe instead of separate work and casual wardrobes
• Clothing and footwear experiencing deflation of 0.3% due to heavy discounting
• Economic uncertainty and global geopolitical tensions contributing to consumer caution
• Retailers shifting focus to increasing average transaction value rather than acquiring new customers
• Creative marketing approaches including collaborations and limited editions becoming more important for driving sales
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Welcome to the Rethink Productivity podcast. I'm delighted to welcome back our returning guest. I'm World CEO and founder at Rendell Intelligence and Insights and we are back talking about May, june, may, may.
Speaker 2:Two bank holidays in May.
Speaker 1:You can tell I'm still on holiday. Yeah, lucky thing I know I just returned, so hence my my brain mash. So yeah, two bank holidays um. I was trying to think what the weather was like.
Speaker 2:It was all right, it's quite good. Yeah, not bad at all not as hot as it is currently when we're doing this recording, but it was very passable no, um, yeah, things were kind of relatively level from the month before, weren't they?
Speaker 1:and we had that whole easter hiccup, didn't we, of trying to plot easter against easter and matching up the right months. So two bank holidays um may is that kind of time, I suppose, when people are starting to think about if they put summer holiday, getting ready for it, all that kind of stuff. We had some relatively okay weather, as we've said, so hit us with the numbers then hit you with the bad news. I'm afraid I had a funny feeling.
Speaker 1:You might be saying that oh, I do wish I had something positive to tell you we will, we will have, we will have upbeat like, like we said, kind of off air. Sometimes it has to go down to come up on it. So we will have positive ones in the future.
Speaker 2:So the data for footfall and spend is out, as is inflation. We're still waiting for the government, the ons, retail sales, but we do have retail sales from brc, so hitting on footfall. So brc footfall, unfortunately, was down in the high street by two and a half percent. The only channel that was up was retail parts and that was only up by 0.2%. So overall footfall was down by 1.7%, which of course suggests spending is down and it was absolutely down.
Speaker 2:Beauclair's data, which tracks spending in high streets, was down 1.8% year-on-year, which is a worse result than last May where it was down 0.6%. Brc, which looks at retail sales across all channels, so that's store, non-store, in-town and out-of-town. Overall sales were up 1%, but non-food sales were down 1.1%. So people clearly are reined back spending. So it's not particularly strong at all um and in fact has weakened from may last year. Um, just following through on the beauclair dates, it looks at different sectors and there are five sectors that account for 85 percent of spending in towns and cities, as there's fashion, food and drink, which is hospitality, general retail, which was only to the store but now includes the value retails like B&M and Home Bargains, grocery, health and beauty, and fashion really is the poorest performer of those five. Spending dropped by 3.6% year on year, a slight improvement from May last year when it dropped 4.2%. But that's two years of consecutive decline and unfortunately general retail was a bit of a star performer last May 6.3% up. This year it's 0.7% down.
Speaker 1:So we're seeing this reigning in of spending all over really which has been the theme you've touched on the kind of last two or three times we spoke, haven't you that uncertainty in the world and in the uk, the economy, that that reigning of spend? We've talked historically about the mortgage rate kind of cliffs that people tend to drop off, although that softened as mortgage rates come down slightly, but that that suggests there's still that general nervousness of people wanting a bit of a pot for a rainy day, all those big purchases maybe put on hold or deferred until people have more certainty. And that seems just to be the kind of. I suppose if we were in an aeroplane it would be in the holding pattern that we're circling around in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I do think that you know, when there's bad news economically and geopolitically which there is at the moment, as we know, with Ukraine, war and the Middle East and, for a lot of people, trump in the US people feel nervous. That doesn't make them feel confident to spend because they're worried generally. They're feeling pretty down generally, so they're much more cautious. So that comes through in terms of how and their behavior, in terms of their own personal buying habits.
Speaker 1:And this general drop-off we've seen, and consistently in fashion that's never really bounced back, since probably lockdown has it.
Speaker 2:No, it's been negative on an annual basis for the last two years.
Speaker 2:Every month it's been dropping away and you know there's a lot of factors at play here. I mean, I'm actually recording from a conference I'm attending for the Association of Town and City Management and I've been speaking to some of the delegates who are practitioners in towns and cities and you know, I think the universal opinion is that, you know, the change in the way we work and the way we dress because of the change in the way we work means that none of us few of us have two separate wardrobes like we used to. I remember I had a work wardrobe and a leisure wardrobe. Now we just have a wardrobe.
Speaker 2:So of course, you buy less and if you work at home one or two days a week, you don't really need decent clothing for that. You put a pair of joggers or a pair of jeans on and you save your decent wardrobe for when you go to the office, so that there's a whole shift in our buying behavior around fashion now, which means essentially we don't need to buy as much yeah, and I suppose as a businesses have become more relaxed as well, so that even if we even if we were going in two days a week, I wouldn't necessarily be working wearing a shirt and tie or formal clothes.
Speaker 1:Most businesses operate semi-casual trainers, smart or widely accepted jeans, casual shirts. So that's probably helped harmonize the wardrobe, hasn't it Absolutely, and that must then lead to more discounting.
Speaker 2:It does and that's shown through. Actually today we saw the publication of the inflation rate for May and it's sitting around about where it was in April. So it was in April. It was revised down to 3.5%. In May it was 3.4%. But actually in clothing and footwear there is deflation 0.3 percent. So actually that that has to be through discounting because clearly the cost of production has not reduced.
Speaker 1:But you know there is a lot of discounting going on because things are just not shifting so good if you're looking to, I suppose, um rebalance your summer wardrobe with whatever's left and at the time of recording it's looking like it's going to be quite nice for certainly the rest of the month we're in. But yeah, bad if you're trying to protect margin, if you're trying to move out stock and again, one of the challenges we know in, certainly in retail and fashion, especially because of its seasonality, is clearing dead stock. It just becomes a challenge to move. Every time you touch it it becomes less valuable. So from a consumer's point of view, I suppose there's going to be some good offers out there in certainly fashion and footwear, hopefully over the next month or two.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I remember old enough to remember a series of recessions when discounting was just the norm and essentially it became practice not to buy anything unless you know you're getting a discount on it. And I think I fear that that's going to almost be the case now really. And people, you know, with this holding pattern, if our summers are short and we're getting this, we've got a great state, great weather at the moment, but if that doesn't last, people probably won't invest. They'll say, well, I've managed. You know, it's only a few more weeks till the weather changes and we're into late august and then we're back to school. You know? Um, yeah, it's, it's tough for the fashion industry. It always has been.
Speaker 1:Seasons are short, but you have all these other factors that have shifted around what is impacting fashion now, and that's really happened from covid onwards and has there been any insight so far this year into kind of people's appetite for booking summer holidays abroad and and spending there, or are we seeing that as people still holding back and maybe looking for late deals?
Speaker 2:well, I think there's a lot of holding back and we're looking for late. Does one of the um statements that the government put out in terms of the press release around the inflation rate was the fact that um flights have actually come down in price. You know so, and there has been some reduction of fuel costs as well, so that will have helped um. So, but there's nothing being huge and you, there's some offers. If you look on all the advertising and marketing from all the leading travel companies, they're offering deals still, you know yeah, so again all plays into the consumer's hands.
Speaker 1:As you said, there's so many certainty in the world, certainly with the the stuff in terms of the unrest. Maybe that impacts starts to impact oil prices, which sees things go up. So I am not going to promise good news next month. Um, we'll see if we're still in our holding pattern and at some point given position to permission to land and and we can. We can all cheer and start to see that upward movement. But it seems like we've kind of got stuck in this. I won't say it's a rut, but we've got stuck in this cycle of a bit of a standoff of people wanting to preserve money because they're unsure. But then clearly that has an impact when you start to see the figures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think in terms, yeah, what this means for retail and retailers and what you know. What are the actionable insights these? These insights are what you can do with them, really, but it's about trying to find a different way to market, not just on price. It's got to be something else out there that will try and tempt and tease consumers to part with their cash, whether that's creating greater community, greater spirit.
Speaker 1:Um, you know something to try and turn that coin over and prompt people to buy yeah, and we've seen you know I think we talked about before collaboration seems to be coming more to the front, certainly in fashion. You know people like adidas doing stuff with liberty and limited editions and, yeah, you know influencers and all the viral stuff that goes. So I'm not saying that's easy or cheap, but that that all starts to to play through. And, again, as we've talked before, sometimes it's the focus is on selling more to the same people, because getting new customers is really tricky. But driving average transaction value atv is the, I think, the smart play at the moment and seeing lots of retailers we're working with making that their almost number one kpi of how we drive in atv absolutely, and it's interesting because actually the atv in fashion dropped by 1.8 percent so but the overall sales dropped by 3.6%.
Speaker 2:So actually there's a drop in customers and transactions. They're making Food and drink. Actually, hospitality was the only one of the five sectors where there's an increase in ATV. They also had a reduction in customers' spending and the number of transactions they made, but the ATV of those who did went up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense, and I think there's been some stealth price increases on the back of the ni stuff in some of those industries as well. That have probably started to come through yeah, yes brilliant, always great to talk. We will, I promise we will at some point I don't know which year, I don't know which month have positive news. But I think you know, understanding, understanding the numbers, is of great value because then you can do something with it, like you say, in terms of the actionable insights. So always a pleasure die.
Speaker 2:Appreciate your time oh, my pleasure, simon.
