Centre Sud Market Intelligence

 

About the brand

Centre Sud is a shopping centre located in the southern suburbs of Le Mans.  The 16,900 m2 district centre is anchored by Carrefour and is home to Armand Thiery,  Claires, H&M, Jules, Kiko, Promod and Sergent Major.

Despite a recent refurbishment, the centre was under-performing and the owner required a review of customer attitudes towards the centre to assist the market positioning.

Centre Sud Market Intelligence

The Challenge/Task

  • Confirm key visitor groups and prioritise target shopping groups

  • Understand the retail catchment and prioritise opportunities to improve footfall

  • Provide insight into the knowledge, attitudes and shopping requirements of customers including use of competing centres, centre branding and reaction to proposed improvements

  • Identify a sustainable role and positioning for Centre Sud

  • Provide demographic and spending statistics to assist marketing activity

WHAT WE DID

  • Collected visitor addresses to define Centre Sud’s retail catchment

  • Assessed the catchment resident population and expenditure

  • Provided lifestyle profile of shoppers and catchment residents

  • Estimated and prioritised Trading Gap opportunities

  • Undertook qualitative research to understand shopping habits, use of competing centres, perceptions of Centre Sud, awareness of marketing activity and reactions to proposed branding and tenant mix improvements

  • Delivered the presentation in French to the asset management team

The Result

The client had not previously commissioned work of this sort in France and implementation of the output greatly assisted the working relationship between the London and Paris offices.  At centre level, the benefits have been evident in three major areas.

  • The marketing is now much more appropriate and more accurately targeted.
  • Physically, the new layout and design for the Centre better meets shopper requirements
  • Operational changes have been made, through the redeployment of Centre staff, which has enhanced the ambience of the Centre