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Consumer Christmas shopping trends remain unaffected by Black Friday

Tuesday, December 15, 2015 - 11:49 by Mike Price

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The results of a new YouGov survey suggest that even with the rise in the popularity of Black Friday, the majority of people are still ignoring this major retail event and sticking to a more traditional approach to completing their Christmas shopping.

Almost three quarters of all consumers in the UK did not get involved with the hype of Black Friday whatsoever this year, with only 21 per cent of people making a purchase online during this period.

Meanwhile, only eight per cent of people headed to the high street to buy something on Black Friday, which tallies with reports of smaller crowds of shoppers being seen in stores across the country.

In fact, the only thing that Black Friday and Cyber Monday confirmed was that footfall is continuing to decline nationwide as more people choose to use sites offering safe shopping online to buy products, rather than visiting shops in person.

A 4.2 per cent fall in high street footfall over the past year, combined with a 3.4 per cent dip in shopping centre visits, has one again confirmed the power of the web to attract people to part ways with their cash.

The only area of the bricks and mortar market which saw an uptick was out of town retail parks, where a two per cent year on year rise in footfall was recorded. This may have a lot to do with the fact that companies are embracing the click and collect approach to online orders, which in turn, makes people more likely to visit a nearby retail park to pick up items.

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday helped stir up plenty of sales for retailers ahead of Christmas, it seems that most people were content to ignore these events.