Sofa or City Centre - How Do You Prefer to Shop?

Shopping from the sofa has never been easier. A few taps on a phone can have clothes, electronics, groceries and almost anything else heading towards your front door without having to leave the house.

Yet walk along Northumberland Street or through Eldon Square on a busy Saturday and it becomes clear that Newcastle shoppers have not abandoned physical stores.

So, given the choice, would you rather shop online or make a day of it in Newcastle city centre?

Online shopping continues to grow.

The latest figures demonstrate just how important internet shopping has become.

Office for National Statistics data shows online purchases accounted for 29.4 per cent of total retail spending in Great Britain during June 2026. That was up from 28.9 per cent in May and represented the highest proportion recorded since April 2021.

Online spending was also 14.4 per cent higher than in June 2025, while internet sales increased by 3.8 per cent during the second quarter of 2026 compared with the previous three months.

The attraction is obvious. Online shoppers can compare dozens of retailers within minutes, order late at night and avoid travelling into Newcastle, paying for parking or carrying bags around the city.

For people living elsewhere in the North East, particularly those without straightforward public transport connections, home delivery can make the convenience gap even bigger.

Newcastle shoppers are still turning up in millions.

Online shopping's success does not mean the traditional shopping trip is disappearing.

Eldon Square welcomed an enormous 26.4 million visitors during 2025, according to figures published by NewcastleGateshead Initiative. Footfall actually increased by 1.7 per cent compared with 2024, despite UK retail footfall overall falling by 0.8 per cent.

That works out at roughly 72,000 visits per day across the year, although visitor numbers naturally fluctuate considerably depending on the day and season.

Christmas demonstrated the continuing pull of Newcastle city centre particularly clearly. Eldon Square recorded 5.6 million visits during November and December alone, while fourth-quarter footfall increased by 5.9 per cent year-on-year.

Those figures suggest plenty of North East shoppers still see value in visiting stores rather than relying entirely on a delivery driver.

Why Newcastle city centre still has an advantage.

Physical shopping offers something a website cannot completely replicate.

Clothes can be tried on, products can be examined before handing over any money and purchases can usually be taken home immediately. There is no waiting for delivery, wondering whether a parcel will arrive or discovering that something looks completely different from the photographs online.

A Newcastle shopping trip can also involve much more than buying something. Visitors can combine Eldon Square and Northumberland Street with lunch, coffee, entertainment or drinks, which helps explain why major shopping centres are increasingly mixing retail with leisure.

For independent Newcastle businesses, getting customers through the door can be particularly important. Money spent locally can support businesses and jobs that cannot necessarily compete with the scale or convenience of global online retailers.

But convenience is difficult to beat.

For all the advantages of Newcastle city centre shopping, online retailers have removed many of the inconveniences associated with buying something.

There are no queues, crowded changing rooms or journeys home carrying multiple bags. Prices can be compared almost instantly and shoppers can search specifically for the size, colour or product they want.

The transformation becomes even clearer when looking further back. Online sales accounted for only 3.4 per cent of British retail sales in 2007. By 2025, the annual figure had reached 27.4 per cent.

In less than two decades, internet shopping has therefore gone from a relatively small part of retail to accounting for more than £1 in every £4 spent.

Could shoppers ultimately want both?

Perhaps the real battle is no longer online versus the high street.

Many people now use both depending on what they are buying. A customer might research prices online before heading into Newcastle to see the product, or browse something in a shop before ordering it online later.

Retailers themselves have adapted through click-and-collect services, apps and online stock checking, increasingly blurring the boundary between internet and physical shopping.

Newcastle's footfall figures suggest the city centre still has considerable pulling power, even as almost three in every ten pounds of retail spending nationally moves online.

The question is whether that balance will continue, or whether convenience will eventually persuade more shoppers to swap Northumberland Street for the sofa.

Share your thoughts.

Would you rather shop online or head into Newcastle city centre?