School holiday season boosts retail figures at Birmingham Bullring operator Hammerson
The start of the school holiday season helped drive a sharp rise in retail sales in July, according to one of Britain’s biggest shopping centre owners.
Hammerson, which owns the Bullring in Birmingham as well as north London’s Brent Cross shopping centre, launched the Hammerson Retail Tracker — or HART — earlier this year to monitor consumer spending habits.
Sales rose by 2.9 per cent in the four weeks to 18 July, its latest retail tracker released yesterday shows. The last seven days were particularly strong, with sales up 5.4 per cent.
Hammerson said the performance was driven by a 20.8 per cent rise in sales of toys and games, with retro collections such as including Star Wars memorabilia and My Little Pony among the bestsellers. The Muslim festival of Eid, marking the end of Ramadan, also helped boost restaurant sales by 11.7 per cent.