This past week has seen a decline in sales as pubs simply couldn’t compete with the single BIGGEST sales day of 2022, England’s Quarter Final Match vs. France in the 2022 World Cup, according to the latest analysis by Oxford partnership.
This has resulted in a decline in overall Draught Pint Sales which were down -2.1% versus the same week last year.
However, Friday is starting to grow its share of weekly sales with an increase in friends and family occasions in the run up to Christmas.
The big winners in the past week have again been the more traditional winter drinks (Stout & Ale) with Stout seeing the biggest gains of +15.4%, and Ale +9.6%.
Last year saw HUGE Lager sales driven by the World Cup Quarter Finals, meaning that the knock on effect this year is a total category decline of -5.4%. Within the category the biggest to lose out are Core Lager -7.8% and World 4% -7.0%.
This week we have also seen footfall flat versus 2022, except for Saturday & Sunday which both fell vs. 2022. Hardest hit were City Centres where footfall was down -1.6% versus 2022, hit again by train strikes during the week. Suburban and Rural areas fared the best with Friday the strongest day.
Average consumer dwell time grew at a total level to 127 mins vs. 122 mins in the same week last year (+4.1%) with City Centres driving the highest growth +5.8%, but the dwell time is down vs. last week. All locations benefitted from an increased consumer visit length vs. last year, with Suburban outlets +2.4% and then Rural +3.4%.
Alison Jordan, CEO of the Oxford Partnership, commented: “I guess it’s not a huge surprise to see a decline versus this time last year – a World Cup Quarter Final is a very hard act to follow! What is pleasing is that the decline this week hasn’t been too big as the volume data from Vianet shows, and we should hopefully see the trade starting to improve now that the festive season is well upon us and there are no more strikes to come.”
