Just over half of UK consumers are ready to visit non-essential stores once lockdown restrictions are lifted – with clothing top of their shopping lists, and 16-24s the most eager to return to shops – a new survey suggests.
While the majority of UK consumers plan to prioritise spending time with friends and family when lockdown restrictions are lifted, 16.0% aim to spend time shopping for non-food items, says leading data and analytics company GlobalData.
Of these, over two-thirds are looking forward to purchasing clothing items, as they start to anticipate more social activities and buy into new season trends, according to GlobalData’s survey of 2,000 nationally representative consumers conducted in May 2020.
“Although this interest will be encouraging for fashion players whose stores have been closed for weeks, it will not be enough to boost the sector across the full year,” cautions Pippa Stephens, associate retail analyst at GlobalData.
“Clothing and footwear is still expected to be the sector worst hit by the pandemic with UK spend is forecast to decline 31.6% in 2020.”
Source: GlobalData’s monthly survey of 2,000 nationally representative UK consumers conducted in May 2020. Consumers that cited that they planned to shop for non-essential items immediately after the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, were subsequently asked ‘what are you looking forward to shopping for?’ All figures are in percentages.
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By GlobalDataOne of the biggest difficulties that will be encountered across the clothing sector is the concern regarding fitting rooms, with the government stating that shoppers should not be allowed to try on items in store due to hygiene issues.
As fit and comfort are integral factors when buying new clothing items, this is likely to be off-putting, and may become a barrier to purchase. Therefore, retailers operating within this sector must identify innovative solutions, such as augmented reality mirrors, or virtual catwalks via their apps, to ease the shopping process and provide more inspiration for consumers.
Stephens, continues: “The lack of access to fitting rooms will inevitably lead to higher return rates. [And] as retailers are being instructed by the government to quarantine returned goods for 72 hours before putting them back on the shop floor, they will be sat on large amounts of unsaleable stock at one time.
“As this will occupy valuable stockroom space, and lead to more fragmented ranges, clothing players must work to minimise returns by providing more in-depth size guides across different product types. They should also feature a more inclusive range of models and mannequins within in-store displays, to allow shoppers to visualise the items on a selection of different body types.”
16-24s are the most eager to return to shops
Of those UK consumers willing to visit non-essential stores once lockdown restrictions are lifted, 16-24 year olds the most enthusiastic – with 66.8% feeling comfortable returning to shops, the survey also shows.
“With the fatal risk of Covid-19 much lower for the majority of younger consumers, they are more willing to return to public places,” explains Sofie Willmott, lead retail analyst at GlobalData.
“Consequently, those retailers targeting 16-24s such as JD Sports and H&M, will see footfall return more quickly than retailers, such as M&S and Debenhams, that are trying to encourage older customer bases back to stores.”
Although many retailers, including John Lewis & Partners and Reiss, are planning to phase the re-opening of their stores from 15 June to test new safety measures and gauge demand, Primark is opening all of its branches in England straight away, taking on its learnings from its European locations.
Willmott, continues: “Primark’s stores will attract young consumers who have not been able to get their value clothing fix from the retailer online. However many of its city centre branches are likely to be quiet as shoppers will be reluctant to travel to shopping locations. Its huge destination stores at each end of Oxford Street are set to be much more tranquil than usual with a lack of tourist traffic and footfall from workers based nearby.”
