LDO, the only retail outlet centre in London, has continued to buck the footfall trend with strong rises at a time that visitor numbers at other retail destinations are plateauing or falling. The trading update was announced at Revo 2016 (formerly BCSC) in Manchester, the UK’s largest business-to-business event for the retail property industry.
During the month of August, LDO, or London Designer Outlet, saw its footfall rise by +2.3%, year on year, compared with a national trend of -2.3%. Across the school summer holiday, sales revenue across all tenants rose by +19%. Like-for-like sales revenue increased +11% without including newly opened stores such as Jack Wills, Fiorelli, Franklin & Marshall, Sony, Ernest Jones and Levi’s.
Additionally, according to retail experts Springboard, Britain’s retail destinations saw a year-on-year drop in footfall of -3.3% over the August Bank Holiday weekend. In contrast, LDO’s footfall rose by +0.1% compared to the same weekend last year. Like-for-like sales revenue increased +12.6% across the three day weekend, showing the appeal of the new brand names within the centre.
Sue Shepherd, centre manager for LDO, which is based at the heart of Wembley Park, said: “In the two calendar years since we opened, we have added almost one million guests per annum to our footfall. This year, we’re projecting footfall of seven million. That puts us in a strong position compared with established high streets, shopping centres and retail parks. Almost twice as many guests now visit LDO each year than go to Wembley Stadium and The SSE Arena combined.”
In 2015, LDO was ranked 5th best performing outlet centre in Europe and the 2nd best in the UK. It is home to best of high street and premium high street fashion brands including Superdry, Guess, Nike, H&M, Gap, Next, Kurt Geiger and Marks & Spencer. LDO, which features 70 shops, restaurants, bars and cafes, plus a nine-screen Cineworld, has some 265,000 sq. ft. of retail and leisure space.
