How crazy golf has ousted fashion at shopping centres
SOME of Britain’s high street fashion chains are being replaced in giant shopping centres by crazy golf, car showrooms and faddy new stores such as Nespresso.
Shopping centres are changing rapidly in the fightback against online shopping.
Dave Atkins, chief executive of Hammerson, which owns 22 shopping centres across Europe and 15 retail parks, said his centres were trying to create a broader environment to entice shoppers and keep them there.
He pointed to trends for new shops – such as coffee pod maker Nespresso – and games such as escape rooms, where groups of participants must complete a challenge to escape from a room.
Atkins, 51, whose centres include Bullring in Birmingham and Centrale in Croydon, said: ‘We are providing customers what they want – so rather than just pure retail, increasing amounts of leisure brands.
‘Everyone loves the cinema which is very much a core part of our offering but increasingly we are moving to trends such as indoor golf and light shows, so it becomes more varied.
‘We have a large team who are focused on that. We are always trialling something – we put in the Cereal Killer Cafe and that did not work particularly well, but equally escape rooms and cars is a huge area of expansion for us.
‘The days of going to a windswept garage to buy cars is over. We have put the likes of Tesla, Volkswagen, Mercedes, into our shopping centres.
‘ Keep in mind that cars today are more about physicality, design, and technology. This kind of shopping works well, so that’s another emerging trend for us.
‘We provide space in the car park for test drives, but you’d be amazed how many people don’t test drive before buying – all cars drive well nowadays.’
Fashion shops in Hammerson’s chain have fallen over the past few years and now only make up about a third of all lettings compared with about 40pc in 2015.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen opened its first store in a UK shopping centre last year at Bullring, while Treetop Adventure Golf is due to open in Highcross, Leicestershire.
However, high- end fashion brands such as Ted Baker are taking more space. Hammerson is also trying to cater to international visitors, with Chinese tourists now making up around 48pc of international shoppers at its stores. Hammerson yesterday unveiled profits up 6.8pc to £246.3m and a 98pc occupancy rate. Footfall rose 0.4pc to 675,000 visitors and rents rose 7pc to £370.4m.
Retail sales fell 2.7pc, but Atkins stressed that those figures did not take into account the ‘ halo effect’ of those stores, which also generate online sales and brand awareness.
Despite generally positive results, shares fell 2.2pc, or 10.4p, to 465.8p yesterday amid jitters about the threat from online shopping.
Hammerson’s shares have slumped steadily since Christmas because of fears that its imminent takeover of rival Intu will expose it further to the threat of online shopping, and it is now at risk of crashing out of the FTSE 100 tomorrow.
Atkins added that round 85pc of all retail sales still involve physical stores, such as through picking up goods bought online or online browsing before buying in store.