Our wallets and purses all got a little dusty in lockdown.
But when non-essential shops were back open, people in one Greater Manchester borough were happy to put their hands in their pockets and hit the high street to spend big.
Stockport residents went out in their droves to give the town’s economy a boost as lockdown eased, a new report suggests.
Data from Dojo shows that on average, Stopfordians spent £106.82 per transaction when non-essential retail and hospitality venues reopened.
The April 12 reopening, part of the government’s ‘roadmap’ out of Covid-19 lockdown, saw clothing stores in particular see a welcome rise in revenue.
The company, which makes card payment machines, analysed over a billion transactions from the 80,000 UK retailers which use its services.
Research in Stockport suggests despite a boom in internet shopping over the pandemic, consumers were more than happy to go back to the high street.
Dojo says that is because in-person clothes shopping removes the trial and error of online ordering, and the temptation to over-order.
That’s alongside the social aspect of speaking face-to-face with store assistants, the card payment system company adds.
Stockport's average spend of £106.82 was the third-highest in the UK.
Top of the list was Portsmouth with £131.37, with Coventry being the second-placed city — seeing an average of £116.47 per transaction.
Neighbours Manchester came seventh on the list.
Its average of £91.76 supports the idea that customers are willing to travel into the city centre for a big day of spending — so customers do not travel to shop frequently, but fork out a hefty sum when they do.
Alongside its look into spending habits, Dojo also named the stores customers were most excited to get back to in-person.
Primark got shoppers most excited, as 28,450 people searched online for ‘When does Primark open?’ in March alone.
Swedish flat-pack giant IKEA was in second-place, with Sports Direct third.
