London emerges as the "Capital of Shopping" in Europe, study says

London has emerged as the "Capital of Shopping" in Europe, according to a report by UNiDAYS.

The report combined data from four indicators of popularity - Instagram hashtags, global Google searches, daily footfall figures and TripAdvisor reviews - with Covent Garden coming out as the most popular shopping street.

With more than 72,000 visitors to the shopping street daily, Oxford Street is the most visited shopping destination. However, the area has just under 5,000 TripAdvisor reviews compared to Covent Garden (25,000).

Oxford Street scored 80,000 monthly searches from people across the world, compared to Covent Garden's monthly searches of almost 150,000.

Regent Street, which ranks sixth in the list is the UK's third most popular shopping street. With less foot traffic than Oxford Street, the street also has less online reviews and searches, with Oxford Street seeing 248% more global searches each month, and Covent Garden with 545% more globally.

Of Europe’s most photographic shopping streets, London’s Covent Garden also tops the list with 1.48 million photos associated with the hashtag, whilst Paris’s Avenue des Champs-Élysées slides into second spot with over one million photos.

Oxford Street (892,445 images), Berlin’s Alexanderplatz (583,963), and Madrid’s Gran Via (562,394) round off the top five.

UNiDAYS also revealed that fashion brands only have eight seconds to capture the attention of Gen Z customers in this fast moving digital shopping world.

The report also showed that more than half of those surveyed (56%) said they don’t follow brands on social media. While the majority of shoppers will research purchases online first (85%), three quarters of consumers don’t trust shopping directly on social media and prefer to purchase in person instead.

However, in a post pandemic survey of 18,000 Gen Z students, 84% revealed that they were looking forward to browsing the high street shops again in person.