Despite solid festive sales being reported by many high street retailers, overall footfall was down 0.2% when compared to December 2016. The continued rise of online shopping has resulted in a reduction in footfall for many retail outlets. The decline in footfall however, was not as steep a decline as seen a drop of 2.2% in December 2015, giving a slightly more positive forecast for the coming months. British Retail Consortium chief executive, Helen Dickinson, noted that “E-commerce accounted for nearly a quarter of all purchases in December, suggesting that more shoppers than ever opted to go online rather than hit the shops”. This is demonstrated in the number of online retailers reporting boosted sales in the Christmas period, as well as other retailers simply seeing a increase in their online sales.