UK consumers abandon high street for retail parks and shopping centres
Consumers abandoned the high street in favour of retail parks and shopping centres last month, as landlords’ investments start to pay off.
Footfall fell 0.5 per cent in the five weeks to 25 January compared to a drop of 0.7 per cent last year, driven by a 1.4 per cent jump in retail park visitors.
Shopping centres also saw an 0.2 per cent increase, the first increase since March 2017 and the third month in four years that footfall has gone up.
Meanwhile high street footfall dipped 1.8 per cent in January, as consumers favoured the convenience of retail parks and improved shopping centre experience.
Experts said that investment in shopping centres was starting to pay off, as a single owner is able to deliver “meaningful change” more easily than the high street.
Springboard marketing and insights director Diane Wehrle said: “It seems that this is an early sign that the regeneration schemes long planned by owners to broaden the offer of malls to incorporate a greater experiential element, particularly in the larger malls, are working and they now better reflect consumer demands.”
Wehrle added: “This result reinforces the benefit of a single ownership structure and also demonstrates the realisation that the old format of 100 per cent retail is no longer relevant.
“Whilst the gestation period for shipping centre investment may be a long one, once the chess pieces are finally in place a single owner is often more readily able to deliver meaningful change than a high street, which can be weighed down by a multiplicity of owners all of whom have varying objectives and aspirations for their particular asset.”