22 CENTRE SPOTLIGHT
and 10 other tenants have renewed their leases. Sales have been increasing steadily, with Office and The Fragrance
Shop reporting increases of 50 per cent and 16 per cent respectively. In December 2010, Merseyway’s Office store was the third best performing store out of 125 nationwide. And footfall started to rise last Easter, when Topshop out-stripped the Trafford Centre store in sales. “Merseyway was never hugely hit by the Trafford Centre. It’s got a
strong catchment and it’s stood its own ground,” says Peter Barker of Savills, letting agents on the scheme along with Tushingham Moore. “It’s about the fundamentals and not so much about zone A – Merseyway is robust, it has strong anchors and footfall and good trade links.” Retailers and centre management alike have put the increase
in trading and overall popularity of the centre down to a rebrand and bricks and mortar investment, focusing on aesthetics including repainting and planting. And Studio North was commissioned to conduct research before a new marketing strategy was put in place, creating a brand and reinventing Merseyway as a retail destination. Studio North identified three shopper categories – single Mums,
young professionals and older shoppers. The analysis led to the new strap line “famous brands, fabulously close” and the adoption of a new logo and ‘giving tree’ banners with red apple tree visuals and tenant logos that change with the seasons and for special occasions – baubles for Christmas, hearts for Valentine’s Day and pastel colours for Mother’s Day.
The rebranding launched on November 10 last year in conjunction with the Christmas light switch on. There is also a new website, which the landlord paid £10,000 towards. “It was out-of-date,” says O’Shea. “There was no ‘getting here’
information, no offers, no store details and no contact information. Now it has everything people need to plan a visit and it’s had 80,000 hits since the launch.” The Merseyway team has also embraced social media, utilising
Twitter with plans to set up a Facebook page in the summer. The research also found that locals think the car park is owned by
Merseyway. The plan now is to move away from pay on foot, switching instead to pay on exit so people don’t have to rush back to their cars if they’ve run out of time. “The car park is managed by the council but we’re putting in a substantial amount of money to pay for a refurbishment, including
structural works, resurfacing and signage,” says centre manager, Brendan Webb. “At the bi-monthly council meetings, we spend 90 per cent of the time talking about the car park. We’ve come up with short, medium and long term options – unless the car park improves, we’re not going to retain shoppers.”
The car park is seen as a priority but the development of a more
varied food offer is also high on the list of future improvements. The current catering offer consists of McDonald’s, a number of coffee shops and a cafe in M&S. Visuals are being drawn up for a foodcourt type redevelopment. “Stockport is a picturesque little town with an affluent immediate
area,” says Barker. “It has a historic town centre but little night time economy after 6pm. A more varied food offering would help bring people back and create a vibrant, lively evening economy. And if people stayed here longer, the shops would open longer.” It is hoped the evening economy will also be boosted with the imminent signing of a health club to the former JJB unit, which had been vacant for two years. The operator will open a gym complete with other health and lifestyle elements and it will be open into the evenings. Other potential deals on the horizon include Schuh, a retailer Barker says is inquisitive. It already has a concession in the centre’s Republic store and has just gone into Wigan as a test case which has proved successful – it is one of the top five branches in the country. Barker also says there are major players interested in the old River Island unit. And O’Shea says they’ll talk to architects if units need to be reconfigured in line with potential tenants’ requirements. Commercialisation, on the other hand, provided by Brandspace along with Photo-Me photo booths, is less of a priority. There are five mall locations, three in the covered section and one outside. “We have a good tenant mix which include jewellery and accessory
retailers like H. Samuel, Warren James and Ernest Jones,” says O’Shea. “We don’t want to bring in RMU operators that would be in competition with them. Our strategy is not to fill up the mall.” “Things like eyebrow threading and nail bars are complementary but money isn’t the driver, we do turn a lot of operators away,” adds Webb.
According to Barker, the landlord is prepared to lose out on income
if there is a positive outcome for the centre. Something demonstrated when a greenhouse type construction in the covered area, which
SHOPPING CENTRE March 2012
www.shopping-centre.co.uk
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