David Smyth, marketing manager at FootFall, said: 'Both the week before Christmas and the weekend before Christmas were significantly down on the same period in 2001 with drops of 7.2% and 7.5% respectively.
'Now prices have been slashed as the sales start, it will be interesting to see whether this massive increase in the number of shoppers on Boxing Day will continue over the course of the first week of the sales.'
The weekend before Christmas this year compared to 2001 tells the same story with Saturday 21st down 7.4% on Saturday 22nd last year and Sunday 22nd 7.6% down on Sunday 23rd 2001.
The FootFall Index covers 40 million sf of retail space, which includes 100 shopping centres and over 5,000 retail outlets UK-wide.
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