Many factors can alter the way people shop, more common ones like the weather, the day of the week and if the date is close to the UK pay days or not. However a new factor that is determining whether people stay at home to shop or not is, sadly, the fear of attack.
Ever since the horrific night of the thirteenth November 2015 Paris attacks, shoppers have been more reluctant to leave their homes due to fear of being in a highly populated area. We know this due to facts and figures that show how online sales have increased by a huge 40% whilst in store figures have dropped in big cities, with Manchester being the second most affected area outside of London. London has been majorly affected, with the highest decrease in sales. When the decision for the UK to take military action was passed, sales fell even further than previously before.
I went to Manchester’s Market street to interview shoppers on what their opinion was to the decrease in sales in store and whether they were fearful or not to come shopping. My results were mixed with some people taking a ‘whatever will be’ approach, but some others were in fact more on edge. I think that the overall consensus was that people were trying not to let what happened affect their routines.
Working in retail myself I have noticed this drastic change in the way that people are going about their Christmas shopping. A particular trend that I have picked up on is that less people now come shopping on a Saturday and are instead coming out on a Sunday to spend their money.With all of this research, I am wondering whether online sales will carry onto increase and city centres will slowly become less and less populated with shoppers, or maybe after time people will start to come back out of their home to browse in reality again.
Emily Wilkinson 