Retailers saw a quieter than expected start to the post-Christmas sales as footfall declined, according to a snapshot of high street and shopping centre visits across the country.

Footfall up to 5pm on Boxing Day was down 4.5% on the same period last year, according to monitoring service Springboard.

However bargain-hunters were still out in force in some places, with queues forming outside Selfridges in central London from 2.30am.

The drop in shopping trips to physical stores comes as consumers increasingly turn online for their purchases.

November's Black Friday event has also been blamed for bringing forward store discounting from the traditional Boxing Day period.

Diane Wehrle, insights director at Springboard, said: "We did anticipate a drop in footfall on Boxing Day this year, but the scale of the drop is greater than expected.

"Given that last year footfall declined by 1.4% up to 5pm, but dropped by 2.3% over the 24 hour period as a whole, we are now expecting footfall to decline by more than 4% compared with last year over the day as a whole.

"The drop in footfall - the fifth out of the past six years - reinforces the lessening of the importance of Boxing Day as a key trading day in the retail calendar".

The Springboard figures showed a 5.8% decline for high street shopping visits, a 4% downturn for shopping centres and a 2% drop at out of town locations.

Online sales fared better and some shoppers were already spending on Christmas Day itself, with sales on 25 December up 5% on last year according to ecommerce trends experts PCA Predict.

They were forecast to be up 6.2% for Boxing Day.

Source: SkyNews