Fewer shoppers have headed to UK high streets in search of Boxing Day bargains, with central London suffering a significant decline in visitors as many decided to shun the traditional start of the sales.
Footfall at the country’s high streets and shopping centres fell on Friday morning, running slightly behind last year, according to figures from the monitoring company MRI Software. Across all UK retail destinations footfall slipped by 0.3 percent.
Following on from a decline in Boxing Day activity in 2024, there were 2.4 percent fewer visitors on Britain’s high streets than on Dec. 26 last year, while there was a 2.6 percent slide in the number of people going to shopping centres.
However, retail parks bucked the trend and experienced a 6.9 percent increase in the number of visitors on Boxing Day morning. Retail parks, which are mostly in out-of-town locations, accessible by car and often offering free parking, have become more popular with shoppers in recent years thanks to their convenience.
The rise in shoppers deciding to visit retail parks could be seen as an “encouraging start to Boxing Day,” said Jenni Matthews, the marketing and insights director at MRI.
“This suggests that shoppers may well be coming out earlier than expected to grab those bargains; brush off the festive cobwebs,” she added.
Colder temperatures may have put off some would-be shoppers from travelling far from home. Central London recorded a 7.7 percent fall in the number of visitors compared with a year earlier, a much larger decline than the 3.4 percent fall recorded in other cities.
By contrast, there was a near 4 percent increase in visitor numbers in outer London, and there was a 10 percent rise in footfall in coastal towns, as consumers hoped to combine a visit to the shops with a day out.
The traditional Boxing Day start to the post-Christmas sales has increasingly shifted online in recent years, giving consumers the opportunity to secure some deals from the comfort of the sofa as early as Christmas Day itself. Large fashion and homeware retailers including Marks & Spencer and Next are now offering discounts of up to 50 percent online, while reductions will only be available in stores from Saturday.
Despite this, groups of shoppers travelled to Manchester’s Trafford Centre indoor mall, where some outlets opened their doors as early as 7:30 a.m.
Queues gathered outside the Selfridges department store before opening, which was offering reductions of up to 50 percent, as was the cosmetics retailer Lush.
In the run-up to the big day, retailers had been hoping for a late rush to buy presents, given that Christmas Day fell on a Thursday this year, anticipating that shoppers would hunt out last-minute items at the start of the week.
However, there were signs that some consumers held back on purchases. Mild weather during the autumn and the start of winter for much of the country resulted in fewer people adding jumpers, coats or boots to their baskets, according to Clive Black, the head of consumer research at Shore Capital.
Many large fashion retailers — including Next and John Lewis — launched their reductions before Christmas, while others including New Look and Sports Direct were advertising discounts of up to 70 percent.
Retailers have faced a tough year of trading in 2025, with many consumers reining in their spending at a time when energy and grocery bills remain high. Uncertainty in the run-up to Rachel Reeve’s budget in late November over possible tax rises hit consumer confidence at the start of the crucial pre-Christmas trading period.
However, the average shopper is expected to spend £17 ($23) more on the end-of-year sales compared with last year, according to figures from the lender Barclays, taking the average budget to £253, up from £236 in 2024. However, it predicts that fewer consumers will take part amid cost of living pressures.
Consumers around the UK were expected to spend £3.6 billion in the Boxing Day sales, as more sales shoppers use AI and other tools to help them locate the best deals. That figure was £1 billion lower than was estimated for Boxing Day 2024.
By Joanna Partridge
