Callcredit 2013 RetailVision Report

Callcredit Information Group has released its latest RetailVision Report of the UK retail landscape, revealing that the UK's largest retail destinations continue to maintain retail revenues, against a backdrop of increasing competition from online retailers and pro-longed tough trading conditions.

Major retail centres have further cemented their regional dominance and have put more downward pressure on the surrounding smaller towns and local shopping centres across the UK, where revenues have started to see some decline. These smaller retail destinations will have to work hard to stimulate footfall and establish their identity to attract shoppers.

Key findings:

• The top four retail centres: Oxford Street, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow retain their positions as the leading shopping destinations in the UK
• Although Manchester remains the top retail location outside of London, Westfield Stratford City Shopping Centre and Edinburgh have knocked the northern city out of the top 10 'luxury' retail centres
• While the majority of revenues have grown for the top  retail centres, many lower tier towns and smaller shopping districts have seen revenues decrease
• Sunderland, Newport and Bradford have overtaken Blackpool as the top retail centres for value stores

Callcredit's retail centre ranking, highlights a stable position amongst the top retail centres, largely due to the lack of large-scale retail development during 2012/13.  Trinity, Leeds is the standout development during the period, and has pushed Leeds above Nottingham into 7^th place in the ranking (4^th outside London).

Chris Duley, Director at Callcredit's GMAP Retail Planning team commented "Our latest retail reports highlights the opportunities and challenges faced by retail centres up and down the UK. Successful national and international retailers are continuing to extend their store footprint but the wider retail environment needs to be right to attract shoppers.  The big centres can offer this; the question is can the smaller centres offer this too"

The RetailVision report provides the most detailed listing of shopper catchments, retail centre revenues and customer profiling across the UK, covering over 17,000 retail centres classified over 25 centre types.

Chris concluded "In the current difficult economic climate we believe that RetailVision's comprehensive and multi-dimensional approach can help retailers, brands, property companies and town/shopping centre managers alike in identifying and implementing the right location strategies, and thus helping them derive maximum returns from their bricks and mortar investment"  

Download a copy of the report here

Top 50 UK Retail Centres**

**Ranked by annual retail revenue, excluding grocery

Top 10 Luxury Retail Centre**

**Includes all centres containing 200 or more stores

Top 10 Value Retail Centres**

**Includes all centres containing 200 or more stores

Our UK system is now supplemented by increasing numbers of similar classifications in international markets. We already have an office in Tokyo and have joined forces with the British Embassy to support UK businesses in Japan by becoming a member in their Export to Japan scheme. Earlier this year - in direct response to retailer demand - we also made the decision to establish a permanent presence in Shanghai, China.

Historically companies looking to locate into the Asia-Pac region have been hampered by the shortage of reliable marketing data on which to base a decision on whether to invest or not in any new or developing city; our retail planning systems has enabled a number of major global brands including Cath Kidston, adidas and L'Oreal to expand successfully into the region.