Rain hits shops ahead of key Christmas season

Last month's wet weather dampened shoppers' appetites for visiting stores, just as retailers gear up for the key Christmas season.

Footfall on High Streets, retail parks and shopping centres fell by 5.7% in October from a year earlier, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Cost of living pressures also affected spending habits, it said, with consumer confidence still weak.

Shoppers are more reluctant to make bigger purchases, the BRC added.

The heavy rainfall seen last month, which included the impact of Storm Babet, meant many people were decided to stay at home rather than head to the shops, the retail body said.

However, when they did, shoppers were "being much more purposeful about their trips", BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson told the BBC's Today programme.

She said people were "going out less and upping what they were buying each time in terms of volume of purchases".

Overall, Ms Dickinson said the retail market was "very volatile" and "quite a mixed picture".

"People are much more reticent on bigger purchases, particularly because of the pressures of cost of living," she said, but added that retailers are "very resilient".

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The retail sector is now in what is known as the "golden quarter", a key period of the year when many companies make the bulk of their annual profits.

It covers the run-up to Christmas, as well as the Black Friday sales period.

Black Friday has developed from a one-off day of sales to many shops extending offers all week, and in some cases all month.

Andy Sumpter of Sensormatic Solutions, which helped to compile the BRC data, said shoppers were becoming more "focused", as they become "more accepting of the current reality of paying more to buy less".

"With this in mind retailers must capture customer loyalty and spend as early as possible," he said.

"As we head into the critical Christmas purchasing period the focus must be on optimising their online presence or creating engaging experiences that can entice passing trade in-store to be converted into sales."

The BRC data showed that Yorkshire and the Humber was the region with the biggest drop in footfall, down 10.2% from last year.

Among cities, Leeds saw the biggest fall, dropping 9.7%. Edinburgh was the only city surveyed to show a rise in footfall, up 0.5% from last year.