Comments on: Retail parks – going going gone

By: simon

simon — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:34:56 +0000

I guess blue water is the kind of thing your talking about here.
I was thinking about it from a marketing angle. You have to get your potential customers to know about your products, which for a whole range of things means they have to come round and play with them (for example a sofa).
Its difficult to make a call as to which way the future will go, but one thing is for sure, nobody will be arsed to go some where to buy a product that is the same every where and they dont interact with it in a personal way e.g. a can of beans or a mobile phone.
Hmmmmmm
I wonder what else you could do with a retail park?
maybe you could make it a family entertainment place

By: Gianni

Gianni — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:24:52 +0000

The internet flourishes on two key areas of the retail triangle, it is conveniant in so much as you needn’t leave home, and it is cheap because they can reduce overheads, by not having expensive shops in desirable locations… you can see where I’m going here.
If you have to go and ‘experiance’ the goods anyway the eshop has no benifit, and if they have a flashy town centre showroom they increase their overheads and lose custom to the price savvy. The reality will be much as we already see, out of town centers will become product polarised with the outlets there sharing carparking space with their direct competators. all the furnature stores in one place, and the shoe shops in another, we will go back to the middle ages where all peddlers would group together in open competition so the customer would know where to find them… I agree that the sites will get fewer, but they will also grow bigger.

By: simon

simon — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 09:31:44 +0000

I completly aggree with you that people want to get up close and personal with some products that they buy.

And the internet is a pants way to choose a sofa.
However its a great way to buy a sofa.

I am suggesting here that retailers will use the town center shopping areas again to set up places where people can go and choose (or to use wanky words "have a brand experience").

The act of buying then happen in the town center or can happen later when the consumer gets home.

Which every way the "out of town cow shed" style of shop has little to draw people in, especially when travel costs will increase green agenda.

By: simon

simon — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 09:23:13 +0000

comment from facebook

Gianni Paganuzzi at 15:54, on 29 January.

I'm not sure I agree, one of the retail parks stalwarts is the furnature shop, it's gonna take a lot to convince people to buy a sofa they have never seen in the flesh or indeed sat on. Clothes might be easy enough to return but sofas are a different matter, the retail park still offers the consumer something the internet cannot.
Dont get me wrong... Read more, there is no room for electrical shops and their ilk and frankly i hate retail parks more than most, but certain products demand to be experianced face to face.