London Shopping Bounces Back

Milton Keynes, U.K, According to figures from SPSL’s retail Traffic Index, shopper numbers inside London’s congestion zone in the days following the July 7 bombings have shown Londoners to be surprisingly resilient. The Milton Keynes, U.K.-based firm expected the shopper traffic to drop by about 50% for possibly a week after the incident. Instead, after a steep 74% decline in year over year traffic on the day after the bombings, the declines remained below 27%.

“Londoners have drawn a line in the sand,” said Dr. Tim Denison, director of knowledge management at SPSL. “However, despite this ‘Blitz Spirit,’ numbers are unlikely to climb back fully to pre-July 7 comparisons within a few weeks.”

SPSL measures customer traffic at more than 1,750 retail premises in the UK each year.