Westfield Shopping Centre
GT catches up
with Westfi eld’s
card retailers
West LiLife
espite the gloomiest
Westfi eld’s
Knightsbridge, Kings Road and Sloane Street is countered by the fact that the M4 virtually
D
prognosis for retail in all dropped and the blame for the dramatic terminates on Westfi eld’s doorstep.
decades, the month of White City loss of footfall is being traced fi rmly back to Amid all the hype and hooplah of the
October saw the launch
site is truly
White City. opening bash, attended by Boris Johnson and
of the mammoth Westfi eld Of course, any new opening as vast Leona Lewis, Greetings Today was pleased to
shopping centre in West vast as Westfi eld is going to have a knock-on see a selection of card retailers had signed up
London. effect but any idea that the new centre is and were expressing confi dence that Westfi eld
Rising from its White City fastness, simply cannibalising other areas of London would deliver.
Westfi eld is truly jaw-dropping in its scale and
scope. At a cost of £1.2 billion to develop and
with 2km of retail shopfront, Westfi eld sticks a
Cards Galore
gigantic two-fi ngers up to the doom-mongers
There are plenty of people spending at Westfi eld
and naysayers predicting the end of shopping
but they are not necessarily here to buy cards.
as we know it.
Our position on the upper level is OK and the
Anchored by landmark stores such
operators have been careful not to site us too
as Marks & Spencer, House of Fraser,
close to other card retailers. Obviously the Lower
Debenhams Waitrose and Next, the complex
Mall is much better, which is where WH Smiths
also features a cinema, leisure facilities and
and Clinton Cards are situated. A Birthdays store
football pitch-sized atrium area that doubles as
is rumoured to be opening down there too.
a performance space.
We had a few issues with Westfi eld over the
The Westfi eld retail development team
fi t-out and look of our store but that’s true of a lot
has also achieved notoriety for ensuring the
of centres now. There was nothing really tricky to
in-store quality of its retail partners matches its
worry about though.
own, high expectations. Store operators have
It’s diffi cult to tell how the store will perform
been surprised to receive very fi rm direction on
but at the minute we are not making enough
what they should be doing with their fi t-outs.
to pay our overhead. Hopefully in time, that will
Feathers have been ruffl ed but the developer is
change.
unrepentant that it knows best.
Ramit Shah – Director
It may be early days for the biggest urban
shopping mall in Western Europe but already,
Westfi eld is sucking shoppers into its retail
vortex from all corners of the Capital. In
its fi rst week of opening over half a million Paperchase
shoppers had tramped through its doors Walking into Westfi eld certainly has the WOW factor! It’s is a light airy environment with
while elsewhere, The numbers of consumers impressive fully glazed shop fronts.
visiting shopping districts in other areas of The centre was very busy at launch but probably with more people looking at the centre
London slumped by over a quarter, according rather than buying. This has now changed and although there are less people in the centre
to research. Customer numbers in Oxford than day one they are shoppers and are spending money. Our customer spend is as
Street, Regent Street, South Molton Street expected.
and Bond Street fell by 25.2 pc between Westfi eld’s retailers have tried to do something notable and Paperchase has fi tted a
Thursday October 30, the day that Westfi eld special illuminated sign, which is causing a lot of interest with shoppers and other retailers
opened, and November 5 compared with because they are intrigued to know how it is lit. There’s no real magic involved, it’s just that
the year before, according to fi gures from the cable routing is do discreet it doesn’t look as if it is powered. It’s causing quite a lot of
Synovate, a company that measures customer comment in store though.
footfall. Sales on Kensington High Street,
44 Greetings Today
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