As eager shops got ready for today's traditional Black Friday shopping bonanza, the numbers for October 27 to November 23 were made public.

According to a research by the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium (NIRC) and Sensormatic, footfall has declined year over year after increasing by 1.3% in October.

Nonetheless, the province's November 2.8% decline was better than the 4.5% average for the UK and the least year-over-year decline among the four UK countries. Wales saw the steepest drop, at 7.1%.

However, Northern Ireland's shopping centre footfall saw a sharp decline in November, falling 7.3% after declining 0.3% in October.

Footfall in Belfast fell 2.3% year over year in November after falling -0.6% in October. Out of 11 UK cities, that was the third-best.