Europe's retail sector sees major shift as shoppers buy local due to Covid

Half of Britons in a YouGov survey of 1,032 people said they would now feel uncomfortable visiting an enclosed retail space like a shopping mall

City centre shops and malls may have lost their lustre during the Covid-19 pandemic, but as lockdowns ease across Europe many stores in and around residential areas stand to benefit as consumers remain reluctant to venture far from home.

While retail sales appear to be rebounding - surging 17.8% in the euro zone in May and approaching pre-lockdown levels in Britain in June - shoppers are increasingly staying local, leaving Europe's most renowned shopping districts from London's West End to Berlin's Kurfürstendamm struggling in the absence of office workers and tourists.

On Germany's main shopping streets in Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin, footfall