Comment: Westfield London's 5th birthday - how it has defied economic gloom

Today is an exciting day as we celebrate five successful years at Westfield London. Together with our retailers, we have defied the doom and gloom and have generated more than £4bn in retail sales, attracted over 130 million customers and created 8,000 new jobs for London.

The opening of our first London centre was an important step for the Westfield business and the first example of our iconic centres in iconic markets global strategy. Our vision, alongside joint owners Commerz Real, was to help transform the UK shopping centre landscape, challenge consumers’ perceptions of what a shopping centre could provide and deliver an iconic centre where retailers thrive. Westfield London is now the number one ranked shopping centre in the UK according to CACI, with annual footfall of over 27 million and a moving annual turnover approaching £1bn.

Success however hasn’t always been easy. We opened in the midst of the global recession and it has also been a period of tremendous change for the industry with new technologies and evolving shopping habits, just some of the changes contributing to make the market a very different place to five years ago.

We have also seen the relationship between physical and online retail develop, with digital now very much an established part of the shopper journey. We recently undertook a study into shopping behaviour, ‘How We Shop Now’, which found that 70% of consumers will use their phone or tablet when shopping. However, offline is definitely not going away – for two thirds of shoppers buying in person provides an instant gratification that can’t be replicated online and over 70% of purchases for clothes, shoes and accessories are still made in store. Consumers clearly want both a digital and physical offering.

Shopping is also no longer just about the end purchase but about the overall experience. Over 60% of shoppers in our How We Shop Now survey said shopping is a social experience and regularly shop for fashion and accessories with friends and partners. Over 80% of shoppers also include a café or dining experience in their shopping trip. And this is reflected in our retail mix at Westfield London where we have pushed the boundaries of dining inside a shopping centre with over 65 food and drink retailers. Providing exciting leisure and entertainment experiences is now absolutely crucial to ensuring consumers return to stores.  

For retailers, it is important that landlords are doing everything they can to create the perfect shopping environment for them to succeed – excellent service should be for both customers and retailers. This includes creating exciting events, engaging attractions and vital business and marketing support. This partnership approach to retailing has developed over the past five years across the sector, as both retailers and landlords have recognised the need to work closely.  At Westfield London it has proved hugely successful with research from Javelin Group’s ShopScore showing that a Westfield London branch of a chain store will turn over 57% more than the UK average for a store of that size from that chain.

As with any shopping centre in the UK, the five year mark also means a rent review period. At Westfield we see this as a very collaborative process with our retailers and rents will be reviewed to ensure they meet market value. Rents will be set for the next 5 years and these reviews also provide both landlords and retailers the opportunity to identify further opportunities for growth and success.

It’s been a fantastic five years; however, we won’t be resting. At Westfield London, we will continue to focus on the customer to ensure we are meeting their changing needs and next year sees the opening of the first Kidzania in the UK which is expected to attract an additional one million customers each year.

Happy Birthday to all our Westfield London retailers!  

• Bill Giouroukos is Westfield’s director of operations