July proved a strong month for Scotland’s retail destinations, with overall footfall rising +8.0% month on month and +3.5% year on year. The headline came from high streets, where footfall increased +11.5% month on month and +4.2% year on year, the strongest monthly and annual growth recorded since 2014. The Commonwealth Games, school summer holidays and more moderate weather than southern parts of the UK experienced all helped create a favourable backdrop for towns and city centres throughout the month. Performance was positive across every destination type, suggesting Scottish consumers continued to favour places that paired convenience and value with a genuine sense of experience.
Retail parks were the standout for annual growth, up +3.9% month on month and +5.4% year on year, the strongest yearly rise of any destination type. Alongside convenience-led shopping and seasonal purchases, destinations offering leisure facilities and dining drew increased activity, with cinemas benefiting from a strong summer pipeline of blockbuster releases. The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow were arguably the month’s biggest single driver: across all retail destinations, Glasgow recorded an +8.2% uplift in visits year on year between 23rd July and 1st August, compared with +5.2% for Scotland as a whole over the same period. As it did in the earlier stages of the World Cup, the event showed how major sporting occasions pull footfall well beyond the venues themselves and into high streets and the wider visitor economy. A more positive consumer mood underpinned much of this, with NielsenIQ reporting a six-point improvement in consumer confidence during the month.
Looking ahead, the clear lesson from July is that consumers continue to reward destinations offering more than shopping alone. The best-performing locations blended retail with leisure, hospitality and seasonal activations to create a broader day out, and 62% of retailers told MRI Software’s Insights from the Inside that summer activations had helped drive sales in recent weeks. As attention turns towards autumn trading and the Golden Quarter, footfall is becoming more closely tied to specific triggers such as weather, live events and major cultural moments. The retailers and town centres that use current and historical trend data to anticipate those moments and give people a compelling reason to visit will be best placed to carry momentum into the second half of the year.
