Footfall and sales are up at Lakeside Village Outlet Shopping

Centre Manager, Di Mellis, gives her retail update on the latest from Doncaster:

It’s great to be able to give a positive retail update. It’s not all doom and gloom out there. I’m pleased to say that we’re continuing to attract more people to our Retail Outlet in Doncaster and footfall last month was up 3.6%.

People are buying when they visit us and sales last month were up 8% based on a like for like year on year comparison with 2019 (we are comparing the data to 2019 as this was the last normal full trading year).

New stores

We’ve attracted new stores, in fact three stores are due to open this month – Charnwood Entertainments are opening a gift store with alcohol and food gifts, perfect for Christmas, Calendar Club is returning for its pre-Christmas run and Bensons Outlet are set to bring their products to the centre giving our customers something new to try.

We recently opened our Weird Fish store and that has proven very popular with our Yorkshire customers, many of whom tell us they shop at the Cornwall store when they go on holiday, so it’s great for them to be able to get the fabulous clothes from Doncaster.

Our monthly artisan food and craft fayre has also grown our customer base with people travelling from as far as Leicester to come and see the different stalls and enjoy the wonderful food and crafts on offer.

Understanding our customers

With half term round the corner, we’ve looked at what our customers love and will have Pumpkin characters at the centre, crafts, and plenty of photo opportunities.

Understanding our customer and making sure that they have the best possible visitor experience is key to our success. Our customers get free parking, access to a free indoor and outdoor play area and throughout the year we have everything from pop up ping pong to a book library area where they can sit and enjoy reading and take a book home with them. We want them to pop in and feel welcome.

Improving our green credentials

Our enhanced recycling area is already going down a treat with our customers and it gives us a real sense of satisfaction seeing more and more items hit those recycling bins.

The new area, located in our Guest Services, gives customers the opportunity to recycle bedding, PPE, printer cartridges, bras, batteries and plastic bottles.

So far this year we have recycled 375 bags of clothing and bric-a-brac donated to the Doncaster and Rotherham branches of the RSPCA, some 20 large boxes of unwanted bras have been sent to help a cancer charity Against Breast Cancer Care, eight large boxes of batteries have been recycled and so much more.

We’ve also, this year, recycled 82 tonnes of cardboard, 11.3 tonnes of soft plastic, 10.2 tonnes of food recycled to be made into renewable energy, 11.5 tonnes of mixed hard plastic and paper and two large boxes of old printer cartridges.

We’re so proud of our green achievements and we have increased our onsite waste recycling to 80%, achieved zero to landfill and you’ll see our management team, with partners, arranging and taking part in quarterly litter picks in our surrounding area.

Christmas and New Year

As we head into the busiest time in the retail calendar, Christmas, and the New Year sales we hope to build on the success of this year.

The centre is almost at 100% occupancy, this is something I’m proud of, our fantastic leasing team work hard to bring new brands and names to the centre to give our customers the right mix of fashion, homeware, gifts and foods.

We’re looking forward to welcoming Santa to the centre, its always a magical time seeing children’s faces light up as they visit and get a little pre Christmas gift. We invite local choirs and singers to the centre so that our customers get a festive experience with music and carols. The pupils from Doncaster School for the Deaf pay us an annual visit and watching them sign the Christmas carols is a real highlight of the year.

We’re very aware of the cost-of-living crisis and the impact this is already having on people in our local community. Being a retail outlet means that lots of our stores have discounted clothes, homeware and everyday goods. This is important now more than ever.

Making the centre look magical and putting on activities during the school holidays will hopefully mean that more families can enjoy some family fun without it impacting on their household spend.

We’re thrilled to see more people visiting the centre and will keep working to ensure that our customers come back time and time again.