Basket & Barometer January 2026

Building on the success of footfall insights we broaden the conversation with the Basket & Barometer podcast. Diane Wehrle CEO at Rendle Intelligence and Insights joins Simon for their monthly chat

We unpack December’s retail data: footfall fell most in shopping centres, high streets held up better, and sales rose only because food prices stayed high. Confidence is inching higher, small towns are gaining share, and the high street is evolving rather than dying.

• Footfall down overall, led by shopping centres
• High streets more resilient than retail parks
• Sales growth driven by food inflation
• Discretionary categories fall in towns and cities
• Average transaction value up as visits fall
• Consumers stay local to cut travel and parking costs
• Savings ratio high despite wage growth
• Retail churn continues with notable brand moves
• High street evolves through mix, value, and relevance

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Chapters

• 0:09 Setting The Stakes For December
• 0:28 Footfall Down, Sales Mixed
• 1:15 Discretionary Spend Takes A Hit
• 3:50 Why Shopping Centres Lag
• 4:37 The Stay-Local Shift
• 5:17 Jobs, Wages, And Saving More
• 6:51 Consumer Confidence Turns A Corner
• 8:48 Winners, Losers, And Retail Cycles
• 12:18 The High Street Evolves, Not Dies
• 12:57 Looking Ahead To January

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Welcome to the Productivity Podcast. I am delighted as ever to be joined by Dan Well, our returning guest for Basket and Barometer January edition, looking back at December 2025. So it's a big one, Dai.

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

It is a big one. It's the one we were anticipating and looking up to see what was happening.

SPEAKER_00: 0:21

So go and then hit it hit us with the headlines.

SPEAKER_01: 0:24

I would love to be bringing you some fantastic news, Simon. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. And I'm sure everyone listening to this probably is aware anyway. So I've got a range of indicators that we're looking at, and it's actually quite an interesting landscape we're looking at. So the primary indicators, the one that everyone looks at, is footfall and sales, and they don't present a particularly great picture for December. So footfall, according to Sensomatic, was down overall. And this is football into retail stores by it was down 2.9%. The hardest hit of the three channels, shopping centres, retail parks, and high streets, were shopping centres, and footfall dropped there by 5.1. High Streets is slightly better, more robust at just a drop of 0.9, and retail parks in the middle at 2.5 down. So, you know, there were fewer people going into stores, and I think every all the retailers out there will probably be aware of that. The BRC produced retail sales numbers, of course, for December, and they're actually up by 1.2%. But all of that increase was driven by food, and that went up 3.1% year on year. Non-food overall dropped by 0.3%, and non-food in store sales dropped by 0.5%. So, you know, it was clearly a case of people prioritizing food. But underlying that behind that sits, of course, inflation. And inflation on food is still over 4%, whereas inflation on say clothing and footwear is zero or negative. So, you know, where they prioritise food, you're going to pay more for it, so sales go up. So that's overall sales. And then when we focus a little bit more detail on high streets on towns and cities, the Beauclair data looks at this, and they again recorded a drop in sales in December of 3.6% year-on-year. I'd say it's better than last December when sales dropped by 7.9%. So, you know, we're it's an improved picture if you call a negative an improved picture. But they have five key sectors that account for the majority of sales in towns and cities. Uh, fashion, food and drink, which is hospitality, general retail, grocery, and health and beauty. And all of those, all the discretionary ones, health and beauty, fashion, and also general retail will have big drops of about eight, nine percent. The best performing sectors were uh food and drink, so that's hospitality at 2.3% down, and grocery at 2.9% down. So it really was a cutting back on discretionary items. So, you know, it was a it was a December of caution, and it was that that caution in high streets was driven by fewer customers. Just weren't as many people buying products, and at the same time, the ATV rose, which you know is a reflection of inflation, you know, because obviously if things cost more, you spend more. So fewer people were buying products, but actually what they were paying for them rose. So I mean gr the the grocery was the only key sector where the ATV actually increased by 3.4%, reflecting inflation. So it was an inflationary month, people were cautious, and so that flowed straight through into pulling back on what they spending and what they had to spend, really. And of course, we've talked in the past about savings, and savings are still high. So people are plumbing their money into this into their bank accounts.

SPEAKER_00: 3:38

And was there a particular reason why shopping centres were so down based on high street and um retail parts?

SPEAKER_01: 3:46

Well, I mean, partly I think because shopping centres have less uh food and drink offer and less grocery offer. So they tend to be mainly non-food. They they're they have improved a lot in their terms of their their their their food and drink offer, but they tend to be more daytime, daytime stuff, you know, supporting a shopping trip as opposed to going out for a meal or going out to be entertained in the evening. So if you're shopping less, you tend to you get to go to shopping, you know, if you're shopping less, you'll go to less shopping centres. At the same time, I've always seen this over sort of decades I've been working in the industry that when things are tough, people pull back from going to big big centres because it gets to be expensive. The travel's expensive, the parking's expensive, they don't have the money to spend, they tend to stay local. And and in fact, some of the work I'm doing for Beauclair at the moment, I don't want to plug anything, but there's a webinar in February, on February 11th, where we're talking about the year. But we've seen small towns do better last year and actually increased spend in small towns and it decreased in medium and large towns. So people are staying local again. You know, partly for a bit of authenticity, I think that's coming through, but also people don't want to spend money getting to places, parking in places when they don't have it.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

Yeah, that might that make sense. And we're we're cautious. I think you've you've used that word a couple of times in terms of consumers, that's linked to other external factors. So I know we talked before about unemployment being at a relatively record high, so I think it's either under 24s, is it, and kind of university levers.

SPEAKER_01: 5:21

Yeah, yeah, it is. And also, you know, unemployment generally we're we're at the highest level we've been since since COVID. So even in people in employment have been feeling quite vulnerable because, you know, and we've had all the judges through the year with regarding the budget, and you know, we started with the increase in national insurance contributions and the threshold, which and of course the national living wage, which affected a lot of employers, and they pulled back on recruitment initially, and then they have been making some redundancy. So people feel very vulnerable, and so then that flows through into how much they're saving as well. So savings ratio is very high. It's still come down a little over the last quarter, but it's still pretty high, and it's the highest again since it's been since COVID. So people where they are earning money, and you know, there is wage inflation, so wages are going up by about four or five percent in the private sector, over seven percent in the public sector. They're being cautious with that money and making sure that they're you know they have their savings in place. And so, of course, if they're saving, they're not saving.

SPEAKER_00: 6:19

Yeah, yeah. So we're we're being cautious. I suppose there's always that we head into spring, Easters relatively early, then we're into the whole debate about booking summer holidays and and all those other bits that tend to start to form in people's minds this year. So it'd be interesting over the next couple of months how those bigger purchases or considered purchases start to come into play, if at all.

SPEAKER_01: 6:40

Absolutely, and I mean we're you know, we're right at the beginning of the year, and so it is hard to predict what's going to happen. I mean, an interesting element I've always look at is the GFK Consumer Confidence Index as well, because you know, the amount we're willing as consumers to spend is much as much about how confident we feel about our employment and how secure we feel in employment and how we feel where the economy is going. And GFK cover that in their regular panel interviews. So they're actually come very early in terms of their results, GFK. So they've got results for December and January already, and January has improved slightly on December, which improved on November. So we're now sitting at an index in January of the overall consumer confidence index of minus 16. Now that sounds pretty bad and it's not great, but hasn't been better than minus 13 since January 2024. So, you know, we're not bad. And January 25 it was minus 2022, and now it's minus 16. So it's you know improved by a quarter, which is pretty good. And it's interesting that actually where the GFK asks about different elements of how of people's confidence are about the confidence around the economy and also their own personal situation, and where the confidence has improved, it's around particularly people's personal situation. So they're feeling better about where they were over the last 12 months, which is a bit strange, but also where they're going over the next 12 months. So the the index for what people feel about their personal situation of the next 12 months improved from one in November to two in December to six in January. So people are starting to feel that we're coming out of the worst of it and they're starting to feel a little bit more stable. You know, we've got all of overall of those jitters around the budget and what may happen. People are starting to feel perhaps that things are getting on a bit of a level playing field, and hopefully that will flow through into retail sales.

SPEAKER_00: 8:39

Fingers crossed. I know some of those figures, like you say, don't sound great, but we're coming from a much worse place. So hopefully heading into I know we talked about this probably last year or this time and the year before the those green shoots of spring. But we are unfortunately as well at that time when we get those retailers that didn't quite make it through in in the news time of recording. Russell and Bromley have just been sold to next. There was a few bits last week around, I think it's Clares again and the original factory shop potentially going into administrational receivership. So that that'll kind of flush out in the next couple of months, I would have thought, as people get through the Christmas, consolidate, and I suppose find out if they're still viable and sustainable.

SPEAKER_01: 9:20

Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. I mean, but I'm a bit of a pragmatist around retailers and their ability to continue to trade. I mean, all retail and any consumer-driven operation has is peaks and trusts and its trends. And you know, you look at Claire's accessories, they've been had financial issues for a number of years. And if you look at the structure of the market, the market has moved away from them. You know, you have Primark who sell everything Claire's sell, and they're more appealing to to youngsters now. And actually, sometimes it just comes down to the ability of the business to bend to the market and reshape itself. And Claire's is a massive business, it's like moving a super tanker, it's very, very difficult, and they're in very highly rented premises and shopping centres, which pay high rent, high rates, and you know, you've got to sell a lot of hair clips to make that pay. And likewise, the original factory shop has had issues for a while, and again, that's I think down to the retailer. Russell and Bromley is interesting because they're a retailer of my youth. You know, I always everyone aspires to be able to shop in Russell and Bromley. And their brand will still remain, but you know, in the retail market where there are hundreds and hundreds of retailers, you you know, you can pull out three or four that fail perhaps a year, and I think that's a natural, you know, a natural trend.

SPEAKER_00: 10:38

Yeah. And it it's always funny, isn't it? Because people you look at LinkedIn and there's the yeah, it it affects people's jobs and lives, which is really unfortunate. But no one's ever surprised by the names, unfortunately, either. So it we feel bad, certainly those of us that worked in retail and you know, think about other people as well. But it's never a oh, that was a shock. I didn't see it coming.

SPEAKER_01: 10:57

No, exactly. And unfortunately, you know, but the the excitement and the thrill of retail, and why you know we all work in retail and enjoy working in retail, is that it is constantly evolving, it is constantly changing, it reflects consumer behaviour and culture. And unfortunately, that's what kills some retailers, you know, and it's very difficult for a number of for retailers, especially when they're very large retailers, to come back. I mean, that's you know, if you look at you know the epitome of coming back, it's MS really. From you know, I remember ten years ago when they were closing stores all the time and they'd come out the FTSE index and everyone was you know forecasting his demise. And look at them now. So it's possible and they've done a fabulous job in that. But it's taken them a decade or so to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 11:42

Yeah, and it's all and it's all cyclical, isn't it? To say my my son probably wouldn't maybe for clothes, but he wouldn't go to MS for food because it's just not in their DNA, they go to Subways or Stangebri's or you know so things will come around as well if you're not ahead of the game. So disappointing for those brands, but I suppose as as consumers, I think again we've said it before, we've we've voted with our feet and not shot there for whatever reasons that are personal to us, but yeah, primarily probably for for not being in line with where everybody else is or being special enough to make the difference.

SPEAKER_01: 12:14

Absolutely, and I mean you know, the media, you know, love a lover line, it's the death of the high street, and it you know, it never is the death of the high street, particularly as a lot of retailers who, you know, often go out of business on in the high street. So I mean the original factory shop's not in the high street, and so you know, it will never be the death of the high street, but it is the evolution of the high street, and you will get more retailers coming in. In fact, it you know, as consumers, we need the high street to change, otherwise it will be a very boring place, you know. So it offers opportunities for new incomers to take space and to prosper in physical stores.

SPEAKER_00: 12:51

Absolutely, absolutely. Brilliant. Well we'll we'll pause on that now, we'll see what January brings. I have a funny feeling. I know what January normally brings with people paying off bills and tightening the belts a little bit and getting ready for the uh the rest of the year, but the the figures will speak for themselves. Yeah, brilliant. Thanks, Ty. I'll catch you soon.

SPEAKER_01: 13:10

Thanks, Simon.