In Detail: How Centre:mk continues to grow its retail offering and customer base

Centre:mk, situated in a grade II listed building, has doubled as both a shopping centre and community hub since its creation in 1975. It is now listed as one of the top ten shopping destinations in the UK, thanks to consistently rising footfall and sales.

Kevin Duffy, Centre Director of Centre:mk, tells TheIndustry.beauty about how the retail destination has became one of the UK’s top ten shopping centres, its plans to keep outperforming UK industry benchmarks, and how its leasing strategy helps ensure the centre remains appealing to consumers.

Kevin Duffy

Kevin Duffy, Retail Director of Centre:mk

What are the drawbacks of operating in a grade II listed building?

We can’t change anything! But it has its benefit and challenges. The centre is on a grid system and we can only provide units of a certain size to retailers, and often can’t do some of the stuff they could in other shopping centres. We can go sideways, but it can’t pop out and can’t increase the head hight.

Has retail fully recovered since the pandemic?

I heard from other locations that they’re moving to more ‘specialist spends’ and our shopping centre isn’t doing that. We’ve got a wide, diverse catchment all the way from Milton Keynes to Coventry and Birmingham, down to Luton and Watford and across the Oxford and Cambridge.

A lot of that catchment is very affluent, which means they’re willing to travel. Centre:mk is a destination in its own right. It has got great parking and it has got a key line up. There’s not many town centre shopping locations that have John Lewis, M&S and Primark. Not to mention the next tier of retailers including NEXT, TK Maxx, River Island, JD Sports. We’ve got a really strong retail line-up and for us, that’s really paid retail dividends – I would absolutely say we're on a positive trajectory.

Can you tell me more about your beauty offering, including services, not just retail?

We’re always looking to understand what the current consumer trends are, especially through social media and talking to our customers in person! We understand what the consumer wants and then adapt our leasing strategy to deliver it. This ensures that our set stays current to today’s consumer.

It would be quite easy to sit on our laurels and go... "we’re a top 10 shopping centre, we’re very successful, we don’t need to do anything"... but that’s not what we do. We’re a top 10 shopping centre because we stay relevant to today’s consumer.

We constantly try to bring in the best retailers that are coming into the UK. For us, we’ve got to keep on top of that, we can’t be complacent with our research on today’s retail climate.

Is there anything you’d like to improve about the shopping destination?

ESG is very high on our agenda - sustainability is a massive thing on our consumer’s minds, so we’ve got a whole ESG strategy for the building. We’ve got a really good set of sustainability credentials, but we’re also looking at what our retailers do and how can we engage them to think about sustainability.

H Beauty recycles make-up, John Lewis offers exchanges, M&S does the same. Our ESG credentials are strong, but we want to get them even stronger through working with our tenants.

What attracts shoppers to Centre:mk?

Middleton Hall is one of the biggest shopping centre event spaces. We have about 180 events per year, and we’re constantly building on that. Our events range from sustainability-focused events to commercial events including job fairs, car shows and wedding shows. We’re really trying to position the shopping centre as the heart of the city.

As a town centre, we don’t have a town square. There’s not a general meeting point where you can gather, so people meet here and this massively drives our sales. It’s really important for us to make sure that when we have events on, they really connect with our consumers. There’s a massive improvement in sales on days when we have an event on and that’s more than half of the year, which is good for us.

Have you noticed a change in consumer behaviours changing during this time of economic uncertainty?

Leasing has changed massively over the past five to ten years, but that's everywhere in the UK, not just with us.

We’re seeing improvements with some retailers, a great example is Primark - 100% up on its target last year. Then we’ve got jewellery retailers upsizing and taking up new space. So it’s across the board - it's not just one particular area of the shopping centre that’s doing well.

When we look at sales, they’re up against 2022, 2021 and 2019. We’re also up against national trends, including footfall, which has increased. Womenswear, accessories, and jewellery sales were up by as much as 32.6% from 2021 during the key Christmas period.

When leasing stores to a retailer, what do you look for?

It’s about their offer and if it meets our leasing strategy. It also depends on whether we have the right space to give them at the moment or if we can give them space in the future. We then need to decide if we make a space to bring that retailer in, or do we move others around to fit them in.

I always say a shopping centre’s leasing strategy is like a jigsaw, you’ve got lots of moving pieces in it and you’re not quite sure where the pieces fit.

A good example is our new retailer H&M and H&M Home, which needed five separate units. We created a leasing strategy around developing that space to get them in and that’s a long term plan. You can’t just create 30,000 sq ft for a shop, especially in our centre where the leasing is strong. We don’t have huge amounts of space, we have to create that space. When we’re bringing in someone like H&M... it’s years in the planning!

The centre recently added H beauty to its line-up of brands after data revealed that Centre:mk's customers are interested in an expanded beauty and cosmetics offering.

TheIndustry.beauty also talks to Layla Webster, Store Manager for H beauty at Centre:mk, about its retail operations since opening and how they cater to the centre's clientele.

Layla Webster, Store Manager at H beauty

What are your best-selling products? Does this differ in centre:mk to other locations?

Here at H beauty Centre:mk, we have carefully curated an extensive portfolio of exclusive beauty brands and products which are tailored to suit our local customers. This includes an exceptionally diverse portfolio of exclusive fragrance brands, which customers can only find here at our store, such as Parfum de Marley and Maison Francis Kurkdjian, which are some of our best-selling items. We are incredibly proud of the portfolio of brands and products that we offer.

What are the benefits of an in-person experience for consumers rather than online?

Our wonderful H beauty employees make H beauty Centre:mk a unique beauty emporium for all our customers. All our employees are experts and passionate about the brands, products and services that they look after, making them eligible to provide the right advice and personalised experiences to our client base, continuously aiming to provide a unique and personal touch that our customers cannot experience in the same way when shopping online.

What are the biggest consumer trends you’re seeing at the moment?

Trends we are seeing include a desire to invest in higher quality beauty products as well as increased interest in purchasing products that have multiple uses; for example, make-up items that can be used as a foundation, a moisturiser, and a concealer. With the rise of social media, we are also seeing customers come in wishing to buy products that have gone viral on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, such as the award-winning hair care brand Champo which is very popular at the moment.

What makes H beauty different to other competitors on the market?

H beauty is an unparalleled concept which intends to bring the joy, inspiration and experiential back to beauty shopping. We continuously aim to provide our customers with elevated and exclusive retail theatre and exceptional in-person shopping experiences at H beauty Centre:mk. With unique offerings such as Drybar for blow dry services, Townhouse for nail services and the Champagne Bar, our customers can come to our store for products, services and even a full day experience that makes us the ultimate beauty playground.

We have also recently launched our trial beauty recycling scheme, where our H beauty customers are incentivised to return used beauty products to access their choice of reward beauty experiences and benefits as part of Harrods’ MyBeauty Rewards programme. This includes access to exciting member-only benefits, including earning rewards points on all beauty purchases, and exclusive offers and services such as discounts on beauty treatments at Drybar and Townhouse.