vacancy rates at ten-year low for top malls

Town
Region
Size
% change
Vacancy Rate
SOURCE: LDC

Stanmore (Town Centre) LON Small -0.5 0.4
Winton (Town Centre) SW Small -0.9 1
Kingsbury (Town Centre) LON Small 1.1 1.1
St. Johns Wood (Town Centre) LON Small 0.4 1.4
Bridport (Town Centre) SW Small 0.8 1.6
Highgate (Town Centre) LON Small -0.3 1.9
West Bridgford (Town Centre) EMD Small -1.2 2.2
All Saints (Town Centre) LON Small -1.2 2.2
Epping (Town Centre) E Small -2.2 2.3
Beaconsfield (Town Centre) SE Small -3.2 2.3
Banstead (Town Centre) SE Medium -3.3 4.8
East Ham (Town Centre) LON Medium 2 4.9
Southall (Town Centre) LON Medium 0.3 5.6
Wood Green (Town Centre) LON Medium 1.8 6.2
Holloway Road (Town Centre) LON Medium -1.3 6.4
Wimbledon (Town Centre) LON Medium -0.4 6.5
Walthamstow (Town Centre) LON Medium 1.9 6.6
Clapham Junction (Town Centre) LON Medium -0.7 6.6
Falmouth (Town Centre) SW Medium -4.1 6.6
Cirencester (Town Centre) SW Medium 0.4 6.6
Bromley (Town Centre) LON Large 1.5 9
Camden Town (Town Centre) LON Large -1.7 9.2
Harrogate (Town Centre) Y Large -2.3 9.3
St. Albans (Town Centre) E Large -2.6 9.6
Kingston-upon-Thames (Town Centre) LON Large 0.1 9.9
York (Town Centre) Y Large -1.2 9.9
Taunton (Town Centre) SW Large -0.7 10
Cambridge (Town Centre) E Large -2.5 10.3
Edinburgh (Town Centre) SCO Large -0.7 10.8
Exeter (Town Centre) SW Large -3.2 11.1
Birmingham (Town Centre) WMD Large -1.4 23.8
Warrington (Town Centre) NW Large 1 24
Wigan (Town Centre) NW Medium 1.3 24
Kingston-upon-Hull (Town Centre) Y Large -0.1 24.2
Bootle (Town Centre) NW Small 3.3 24.4
Corby (Town Centre) EMD Small 11.5 25
Altrincham (Town Centre) NW Medium -3.9 25.1
Wolverhampton (Town Centre) WMD Large 1.5 25.3
Barrow-in-Furness (Town Centre) NW Medium 5 25.4
Middleton (Town Centre) NW Small 3.1 25.5
Lee Green (Town Centre) LON Small -8.5 25.9
Newport, Monmouthshire (Town Centre) WAL Medium -2.8 26
Walsall (Town Centre) WMD Large -0.8 26
Blackburn (Town Centre) NW Medium 0.8 26.3
Dartford (Town Centre) SE Medium 5.3 26.3
Bradford (Town Centre) Y Large 1.5 26.8
Stockton-on-Tees (Town Centre) NE Large -1.3 27.4
Blackpool (Town Centre) NW Large 0.9 27.5
Grimsby (Town Centre) Y Large 1.1 27.5
Dewsbury (Town Centre) Y Medium -0.8 27.6
Stockport (Town Centre) NW Large 3.5 27.7
North Cheam (Town Centre) LON Small 0.2 27.9
Hartlepool (Town Centre) NE Medium 4.9 27.9
Cheetham (Town Centre) NW Small 7.9 28.3
West Bromwich (Town Centre) WMD Medium 4 28.3
Dudley (Town Centre) WMD Medium 16.1 29.4
Runcorn (Town Centre) NW Small -0.7 29.6
Wandsworth (Town Centre) LON Small 9.6 31.5
Margate (Town Centre) SE Small -1.3 36.1
Leigh Park (Town Centre) SE Small -0.3 36.4

Online retail sales to grow 11% a year across EU for next five years

Online retail within the largest European Union nations in Western Europe will grow at an 11% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years, reaching a total value of €114 billion by 2014, according to a new forecast from Forrester Research.

The US will also see double-digit growth over the same period, says Forrester, although at a slightly lower rate of 10% a year, to reach just under $249 billion by 2014.

“Much of the overall retail sector’s growth in both the US and the EU over the next five years will come from the internet,” says Forrester Research’s Sucharita Mulpuru. “To maximize that growth, ebusiness professionals will have to help enable a multichannel strategy that responds to consumers’ increased desire to hop between the offline and online worlds and their increasing mobile and social behaviors. The retail innovators over the next five years will demonstrate customer enablement across all touchpoints, not just via a PC-based web browser.”

Despite consumers’ increasing use of the Web to research products before purchasing, most retailers still fall short on offering a seamless cross-channel experience, say the analysts. According to Forrester’s data, while 82% of US online consumers are satisfied with buying experiences that began and ended in a store, satisfaction drops to 61% for consumers who began their research online and purchased in a store.

Forrester’s European Union forecast encompasses 17 Western European nations and includes a country-by-country breakdown of online retail across the seven largest markets: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

Highlights of Forrester’s ‘Western European Online Retail Forecast, 2009-2014′ include:

• Increased online tenure, improved access, and greater promotion by retailers will drive the number of online shoppers in Europe from 141 million in 2009 to 190 million by 2014. The average spend per online shopper will rise from €483 in 2009 to €601 in 2014.
• Books, event tickets, and clothing are the top three categories purchased online in the majority of Western Europe.
• Among the three largest EU markets, online retail will grow at a 10% CAGR over the next five years in the UK; 9% in Germany; and 13% in France.

“There is a clear divide between the countries of northern and southern Europe regarding online retail adoption,” explains Forrester’s Patti Freeman Evans. “While nearly half of UK residents regularly make a purchase online, a mere 10% of online Spaniards and 11% of online Italians do so today. Still, with compound annual growth rates approaching 20% in markets like Spain, emerging European ecommerce markets are poised for a vigorous period of growth.”

predictions....bcsc

The British Council of Shopping Centres, BCSC, produced a report, The Future of Retail Property 2007, which is one of the only attempts at researching the likely impact of decreased consumer spend on the high street, and the effects on the physical retail property, and whilst largely a factual document, at the time the internet (2007) could be seen to be as mature as it is today, and thus the perceived impact at that time is not as great as we can hypothesis now.

The paper is written about the future of retail property, yet the Internet features only towards the end of the report, and for a very small section. It is largely a positive paper,in favour of shopping centres, perhaps biased and commissioned for the wrong reasons.

In the paper they discuss “that small and medium sized shopping places will suffer the biggest loss of trade to the internet because their comparison goods is relatively low level and commoditised” (P.47) and point out “shopping is an experience, and it’s our right rather than a means to an end”. Whilst the prediction is correct the effects can be seen to be greater than they predict, and their assumption falls far short of today’s reality.

It would appear that there is a gap in the research relating directly to retail internet spend, and the increased effects that this will have on the high street, which is somewhat already under pressure due to the growth of the supermarkets. It would be easy to disagree with this latter statement, and whilst shopping does form part of our culture, if this is taken away then the existence of shopping just becomes a function, rather than the experience they talk about.
The BCSC predict that online shopping will account for 10.7% of retail sales by 2015, a figure grossly underestimated, as we are in 2011 and this figure is already three times the amount. We must question this research in the main body, and how valid it’s research actually is, as they represent the UK shopping centre industry and perhaps are a little biased.

They concluded this section of the paper indicating that “ shopping is a social activity in the main, particularly for women, and there are no signs that women are likely to change their shopping habits”. Further research is certainly needed on this statement.

retrofitting suburbia

We can draw a parallel to the USA, Ellen Dunham- Jones- Retrofitting Suburbia 2009, which illustrates this phenomena in the USA. If  you start with a totally artificial environment, the loss of the consumer means the death of the shopping mall is quick dramatic. They have experienced a greater decline in a much shorter space of time.

Many shopping malls in the USA have not evolved, they have simply been created on an economic whim, and are disappearing as easily and quickly as they are created. In the UK, towns center’s have a historical context, and are largely not as artificial as the shopping malls in the USA, but during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s some Shopping Centres have create an over supply in retail units in many towns, as a reaction to the perceived retail demand.

In the USA, Shopping Malls have survived in artificial environments, for car borne middle  Americans, and it has become apparent that when the customer doesn’t want to shop there anymore then the mall will die. They don’t provide a central place function, or conform to a central place or spatial theory. They are simply built on retail, not consumer demand.

Dunham-Jones, addresses their phenomenon, and feels that a solution, is simply to retro-fit the space with some new real estate. She agues that, “ there is no question that the worlds greatest cities exemplify incremental urbanism and that sensitive interventions that both respect the existing urban structure and advance evolving cultures over time contribute to great places”. She does fail to understand the historical context of a cities' function.

retail .........a shopping habit

Retail and shopping has been a way of life in the UK, and the business of retail property is a billion pound industry effecting many pensions funds, and PLC investments.

Take away the customer and rents start to drop, and yields start to spiral, with capital values decreasing and towns start to show huge vacancy rates with the town units. The reason for this is multi-leveled, firstly multiple retailing taking away the independent shopkeeper, secondly, the rise of the food retailers the morphing into multi channeled retailers, then Internet retailing will take retailing to another level. The outcome is dramatic, with towns now showing vacancy rates of 30%, well in advance of the 10% predicted by some.

What can we do with all of the empty shops, and can government intervention, reverse the trend?, or do we accept the situation and let economics take its own natural course with the social and physical consequences ?.