Top 10 Biggest Shopping Malls in the UK

Ever wondered who is really the biggest shopping mall (or centre as we used to say in the UK)? Well do we judge it by square feet or actually by visitors?

Okay, we’ll do both.

Square feet is the easiest one to do first, so here we go:

         1. Metro Centre, Gateshead                                            194,400 sq ft
      2. Trafford Centre, Manchester                                      185,100 sq ft
3.Westfield Stratford City, London                               175,000 sq ft
4. Bluewater, Dartford                                                     155,700 sq ft
5. Westfield, London                                                         149,400 sq ft
6. Westfield Merry Hill, Dudley                                       140,800 sq ft
7. Meadowhall, Sheffield                                                 139,300 sq ft
8. Lakeside, Thurrock                                                        133,700 sq ft
9. St David’s, Cardiff                                                          130,100 sq ft
10. Liverpool One, Liverpool                                             130,060 sq ft
 10. Armdale, Manchester                                               130,060 sq ft

Now when we come to visitors...

             1. Bullring, Birmingham                                                    40 million

         2. Armdale, Manchester                                               40 million

       3.    St David’s, Cardiff                                                          38 million

       4. Eldon Square, Newcastle                                                36 million

      5. Trafford Centre, Manchester                                          35 million

      6. Bluewater, Dartford                                                          27 million

         & The Centre, Milton Keynes                                            27 million

     8. Meadowhall, Sheffield                                                       25 million

        & Lakeside, Thurrock                                                           25 million

   10. Westfield Merry Hill, Dudley                                            23.5 million

And how do our Scottish shopping centres fare in comparison?

East Kilbride Shopping Centre, East Kilbride = 106,000 sq ft

Braehead, Renfrew = 98,400 sq ft

Silverburn, Glasgow = 91,100 sq ft

So quite a bit to go to compete with the big boys.

Bluewater Retail Park & Market Segmentation

Here's a link to a presentation I did for pupils on market segmentation with reference to the Bluewater Retail Park:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/38431820/Bluewater-Retail-Park

#business

Psychology of Supermarkets

Psychology and social psychology is used in our everyday lives all the time. In fact when you do your weekly shop at Tesco or Asda you are seeing the results of a great deal of consumer psychology research!

We all know about psychological pricing, whereby you are more prone to buy something if it is £9.99 rather than a tenner. But there are other tricks of the trade employed by the retailers.

It begins with the store layout.

At the entrance you may smell an aroma of food to entice you in. Either from the restaurant or the bakery. Regular, everyday foods are spaced out across the store so you have to cover the entire shop for just a few household items.

Most of the public are is right handed and the majority of people turn right when entering a store, so perishables are found on the right or near the back of the store.

Foods bought often are usually in the centre of an aisle to ensure shoppers have to go down that aisle. The theory is that the more you are faced with foods/products the more likely you will buy. Aisles may well be designed to be quite narrow also, so that you are slowed down and you will be in the store for longer… which may mean you will buy more!

Eye level is buy level. Shoppers are apparently more inclined to make a purchase if the product is at the same height as the consumer. Foods that deliver a high profit margin will be at eye level. The big firms pay for this shelving space.

Kids foods/toys are usually placed at the eye level of a child so that they will see it and want their parent to buy it!

Foods that make up meals and recipes are found together, in order that you are tempted to buy them all!

Own brands are placed near the premium brands, with very similar packaging and colours in the hope you will buy them because they are cheaper or even by mistake!

Even at the end, at the checkout there are chocolates and other items arranged so that you may buy them as an impulse purchase.

Here is a pretty interesting A-Z of Retail Psychology: http://www.spacehijackers.org/html/ideas/archipsy/tricks.html