Following my Town Centre Survey, which showed some of the reasons people may not be using the town centre as much as before, there is now some interesting information which shows that there is more spending power than there has been in recent years, so there is hope for our shops.
Barclays Bank produce a regular report called Local Insights, and that shows consumer spending in Ashford increasing by 2.1% over the past year. This compares with a national increase of just 1.6%, which is encouraging news for Ashford.
This is particularly noteworthy because average earnings in Ashford, at £35, 954, are pretty much bang on the national average figure. The average spend per consumer in Ashford is £2,820, higher than the national figure of £2,645. This suggests greater confidence from consumers round here. The average transaction value in Ashford was £31.20, compared with £28.79 nationally.
Unsurprisingly groceries are the largest single item, taking up nearly a quarter of spending. In terms of visits to the shops supermarkets are way ahead of any other category, with six times as many visits as the next most visited type of shop.
The apparently unstoppable growth of online shopping is again visible in these figures. Only groceries and eating and drinking show more than half the spending happening in the shops rather than online (apart from specialist retailers). Entertainment is now consumed online by nearly three quarters of customers, and half of all the clothes we buy are bought online.
Anyone nostalgic for cash will be troubled by the latest figures. Only 6.5% of purchases are made using cash these days, and the figure is heading firmly downwards.
But at least the amount of money we spend is rising. We all know the challenges of making sure enough of it is spent in shops, cafes and bars to keep the streets busy, and that is the current issue to deal with.