FSP Retail Blog
Posted At : 06 November 2008 17:59
The British Council of Shopping Centres are holding their annual “Conference and Showcase” at the ACC in Liverpool this year, and SnapShop are very pleased to announce their position on arena stand 30!
The BCSC Conference and Showcase has been running for over 25 years now and provides a platform for key names in retail property to get together and do business.
Exhibiters include retailers, shopping centre owners/developers, architects/designers, property agents, consultants and local authorities, and the event runs from Monday 10th to Wednesday 12th November.
SnapShop and FSP will be represented by FSP Managing Director Geoff Nicholson, FSP Directors Jo Hewson and John Fell, Senior Consultant Ken Gunn, Analyst Manager Domenica Scordo and of course, SnapShop Manager Heidi Roberts.
Come along and see us at Stand 30 in the arena and please feel free to bring along some interested friends, too!
We’ll be positioned next to Unibox, Hammerson, The Mall Ltd Partnership, Capital Shopping Centres PLC, Centros and SDD Retail right next to the catering area, and our stand should look something like this…
We hope to see you there.
Posted At : 13 October 2008 16:09
How do you know if a retailer is going to fit into your shopping centre? Is it going to bring in the type of shopper you want? Will it fit in with your other tenants? FSP has been working to improve its retailer classification in order to answer just these type of questions. We know
retailers, and the increased number of categories we now use to define their price position and their predominant customer group means that we can easily identify the
right retailers for you. This can be further enhanced when added to the powerful tools we use to classify
shopper populations, to ensure a match between the potential customers in your high street and the shops they most want to visit.
Contact us to find out more about our research methodology, and have a look at our online database
SnapShop to get a view of the type of classifications we use.
Posted At : 26 September 2008 14:55
Those of you out there who receive SnapShop Monthly will see from my
leader that reasonable economic performance in the UK (until recently!) has not been reflected in retail and I wonder why. Although there are possible social and psychological explanations, at FSP we believe the valid explanation is an industrial one. This is where the future retailing landscape is being shaped by the rapid expansion of online retailing, the increasing sales of non-food through grocery outlets and the increasing number of retail parks trading with Open A1 retailers.
This isn’t to downplay the psychological and social explanations. which see on the one hand consumers being spooked by the media-fed anticipation of recession, and on the other the consumer being more savvy, fed up with fashions and technology which cannot keep up with their own pace of change and, in any case, older, wiser and more interested in life experiences than acquiring “stuff”
Posted At : 05 September 2008 14:26
Even the great philosopher would struggle to shed light on the confused commentary on
retail parks. In July, the latest footfall trends survey from Experian told us that Britons are cutting back on trips to
out-of-town retail parks due to rising petrol prices and doing more of their shopping on the Internet.
Now Verdict tells us that an unprecedented wave of investment in town centres will fail to reverse the long standing migration of retail sales from town centres to out-of-town retail parks.
So, there appears to be some disagreement. However, read on and you will find that Experian didn’t actually mean out-of-town retail parks. It meant, I think, regional shopping centres. Furthermore, the threat to town centres from out-of-town retail parks identified by Verdict is as much anticipated as actual. Verdict notes that currently retail parks have a high exposure to big ticket retailers. This means they are more vulnerable than town centres to the current fall in sales of large household merchandise.
Is all this throwing up of dust just a publicity stunt, to draw attention to over-priced standard reports and therefore to be disregarded? Or when supposedly serious commentators confuse the debate about the development of UK retailing, is it actually irresponsibility that should be condemned?
As
FSP has pointed out before, town centres and their shopping both need to be imaginatively re-invented to enhance the users’ experience. This would apply to out-of-town centres too.
Know your customer and delight them with your
offer and you will be impervious to whatever trend is being reported at the time!
Posted At : 19 August 2008 12:15
FSP Managing Director Geoff Nicholson graced the airwaves yet again with another appearance on BBC Radio 4 yesterday morning.
Speaking on the Today show, Geoff and presenter Simon Jack discussed the news that Iceland founder Malcolm Walker is heading a consortium that has tabled a takeover bid for variety store, Woolworths.
With the high street the way it is and Woolworths’ sales results consistently on a downturn, Geoff speculated that the interest from Walker may be personal (Walker was fired from Woolworths in 1971 after it was discovered he had been moonlighting to set up what is now Iceland) and discussed the intensions of the investment group’s approach.
You can listen to the complete show here, and we’ll do our very best to keep you informed on Geoff’s future appearances!
The Today show reaches over 6 million listeners every week and is BBC Radio 4’s most popular show. It is a topical early morning news and current affairs show, aired between 6am to 9am weekdays, and Saturdays 7am to 9am.
Posted At : 04 August 2008 22:43
I understand FOCUS – the service provided by CoStar - has reverted to providing the Requirements List in Word format. Although I’m sure everyone appreciates their chivalry in doing so, I’m still rather surprised that people other than short-cutting letting agents have a use for it – Word format or not! It is the retail and catering mix of the centre that sets it apart from its competitors. The mix should therefore be under the control of its managers, not the whims of retailers.
You don’t need to rely on the Requirements List to determine your tenant line up. Shoppers are attracted to the centre by what’s inside and retailers are attracted by the profile and behaviour of the shoppers. Retailers who understand their own customers will want to know how the centre’s shopper profile relates to their own customer profile. Your
tenant mix planning should rely on the shoppers you want to target. Your letting strategy should be to show your preferred retailers how your centre can work for them, irrespective of what the requirements list states!
Posted At : 04 August 2008 18:47
Westfield is driving a coach and horses through talk of recession. The White City development in London is on course to open in October and is already 90% let. This development has a few advantages over others.
Out of town retailing is apparently sliding, but this development is slap bang in the middle of London – indeed at 1.6m ft
2 it will be the biggest city centre retail destination in Europe. And London retail sales seem to be immune to the slump in the rest of the country, with the BRC recording like-for-likes in London at 8.7% up for the year to June. Finally, the Westfield centre at White City is very definitely targeted upmarket – the crunch feels more like a mere nibble when you’re comfortably cosseted in luxury!
Much of the benefit of retailing in London comes from tourists, especially the European ones who can use the euro exchange rate to their advantage. These tourists can fly in and reach their shopping destinations by public transport. Westfield has added to the anticipated ease of shopping in the White City development by funding a couple of tube stations!
Posted At : 04 August 2008 17:58
I’m not impressed with the latest offering from Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary. “Proposed Revisions to PPS6” makes me wonder if the Government has any care for the state of our town centres. The proposed revisions are hardly decisive action to stop the free-fall of the wellbeing of these centres and
retail developments out of town will just hasten their demise.
Town centres are central to our communities, they need a vociferous representative body, prepared to tackle this head on and each town needs to reflect its own character and the particular aspirations of its own citizens. It has to be Home Town, not Clone Town.
