Mr Wiid also said businesses needed to provide more of service in order to entice people away from online shopping.
“You’ve got to be able to think out of the box, add special things in or different things that the rest of the people aren’t doing,” he said.
Figures from BDO showed national retail sales were at their lowest since January 2021.
Its tracker follows the sales of retailers with some 10,000 individual stores in high streets to give an indication of underlying trading conditions.
Prof Steve Musson, an economic geographer at the University of Reading, said financial pressures were likely behind the change in customer behaviour.
“Sometimes at Christmas you might buy things that you don’t buy in the rest of the year and it’s a time where you can really notice that prices have gone up over the last year,” he said.
“Lots of businesses will be dependent on the run up to Christmas to make their profits for the year.
“As a consequence, anything that might affect consumer confidence or people going out wanting to shop this time of year is a huge concern for retailers.”