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The much-anticipated Trinity Leeds shopping centre opens its doors today, 21st March, with over 120 stores, bars and restaurants. The centre has been designed to be one of the most digitally advanced shopping centres in the UK with free wi-fi, assistants with internet-connected iPads and large video walls operated by gesture recognition.
Otherwise, March has been a fairly quiet month with no reported administrations. Textiles Direct has, however, filed a notice to appoint administrators although this has yet to materialise.
Adding new product categories and formats is a way to differentiate from the rest of the high street. Burberry and Dior have announced plans to expand their luxury offerings in the UK with the opening of standalone beauty boutiques for their perfume and cosmetics collections on the back of the success of Chanel’s first beauty boutique in London’s Covent Garden.
Aurora Fashions has announced a big shake-up of its operations, splitting out Coast from the wider group and rebranding to Fresh Channel, over the next 12-18 months.
Waitrose has announced it is to open gardening shops outside 41 of its stores, and Next is to expand its Home & Garden format with the opening of its third outlet in Camberley.
Bluewater reported strong trading in February with a 6.7% rise in sales across its retailers, outstripping the increase delivered across the whole of the retail sector in February.
February’s online sales increased 13% year-on-year according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index, with nearly all sectors reporting double-digit growth. Average spend, however, hit its lowest levels since October 2008. IMRG predicts that UK cross-border e-tail sales will reach £10bn during 2013, with sales across Europe predicted to reach €36bn.
A new report compiled by the New West End Company and Heart of London Business Alliance expects London’s West End spending to surge 25% to £12.5bn driven by Asian and US tourist shopping in the area.
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