Oct 31, 2017

The UK retail parks were able to attract poach customers from the high street, as a result, the market is expected to grow 13.8% between 2017 and 2022. According to GlobalData’s 2,000-respondent survey, 90% of consumers have shopped at a retail park in the last 12 months, with 54.3% visiting at least once a month, illustrating their broad customer appeal. Also, 49.6% of those visiting retail parks browsed clothing & footwear retailers, superseding the 42.1% for homewares.

The study also found that simultaneous increase seen in retail parks, which tend to feature larger, warehouse-style outlets, reflected demand for furniture and household goods. Overall, retail parks are becoming more attractive to shoppers as they become less dominated by traditional out-of-town retailers within sectors such as electricals and DIY & gardening, and more by high street retailers in clothing & footwear as well as health & beauty, such as Next and Boots.

Charlotte Pearce, the Retail Analyst for GlobalData, explains: “The retail parks landscape is changing drastically as discounters in particular are rapidly expanding their share of the market. Indeed, retailers such as Aldi, Lidl, Home Bargains, and Poundland have grown their presence, leveraging their low price points to draw in shoppers. Over the next five years, discounters will increase their share of the market by 6%, rising to account for 20.3% of retail park sales. This will demonstrate their ability to attract a broad range of shoppers and generate high footfall.”