Member Article

Pre-Christmas shopping boost for Liverpool ONE with record footfall

Merseyside shoppers got into the Christmas spirit early – by making last Saturday Liverpool ONE’s busiest day since it opened in 2008.

According to figures released by the shopping centre’s management, just over 180,000 people visited the centre last Saturday, November 30 – up 4.5% on the previous record.

Liverpool One’s previous visitor record was also set on the first Saturday after November payday - 172,000 people on December 1 last year.

Not only did this new record lead to uplift in sales of goods such as clothing, toys and jewellery ,but there was a significant increase in visits to its Ice Festival on Chavasse Park - and Liverpool ONE’s restaurants were all busy too.

The retail centre now expects to welcome 6.2m visitors in total during November and December, with Estate Director Chris Bliss confident retailers will enjoy a successful festive season.

He said: “Like the Americans anticipate ‘Black Friday’ as the start of the Christmas retail rush, for us the first Saturday after November payday can see over double the amount of shoppers than an average Saturday, a ‘Super Saturday’ you might say.”

“This has been a great year for Liverpool ONE and the significant increase in footfall is very promising as we move towards Christmas. In December last year we saw more than 3.5million visitors to Liverpool ONE and we’re expecting this year to be just as strong.”

He added: “We also have the Ice Festival as an added attraction. The upturn in visits and footfall goes to show that shoppers are still favouring the overall experience of visiting destinations such as Liverpool ONE over online shopping because they want to come and physically buy gifts for their loved-ones, eat at our restaurant, drink in our bars and even skate on our ice rink.”

Liverpool ONE says it continues to buck national trends, trading 26pc ahead of UK averages.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .